Regional pact brings hope for migrant workers

Regional pact brings hope for migrant workers

The much-touted Asean Consensus on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Migrant Workers represents a ray of hope for some 90,000 Indonesian workers in Brunei, Malaysia and Singapore. But whether words will be translated into actions is an open question.

Signed this month by regional leaders in Manila, the consensus is a landmark achievement that took 10 years from the time it was first proposed in Cebu in 2007. However, it is not legally binding, given the conflicting interests of the 10 member states, which include sending and receiving countries, and some that are both senders and recipients of labourers from abroad.

Rights watchdogs also say the pact is still not up to scratch in light of Asean's often-stated vision that aims to put people at the centre of regional policies.

"We don't think this consensus is significant progress since the document is not legally binding, so it would be difficult to demand Asean countries to be committed to its implementation," said Daniel Awigra, a human rights and Asean advocacy manager for the Jakarta-based Human Rights Working Group (HRWG).

Mr Awigra said the consensus was a direct reflection of how Asean works, which is still mainly driven by state interests.

But just a week after the pact was signed on Nov 14 during the Asean summit, Indonesia and Malaysia started to show their commitment during an annual consultation in Kuching, Sarawak on Nov 22.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo said he had asked Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak to support the establishment of more community learning centres where children of Indonesian workers, most of them employed on plantations in Sarawak, can have better access to education.

"I have already raised the issue of Indonesian workers' children's rights to education with PM Najib," Mr Widodo said in a statement.

Nineteen such centres now exist in Malaysia and the Indonesian government aims to see 50 by July next year, on and off plantation sites. According to Mr Widodo, Mr Najib has agreed to help Indonesia establish the centres.

There were about 73,000 Indonesian migrant workers in Malaysia as of October this year, according to the Agency for the Placement and Protection of Indonesian Migrant Workers, also known as BNP2TKI. About 90% of them work as household maids and those workers sent home about 222 million rupiah a month in remittances. There were 10,888 Indonesian workers in Singapore in October who sent home a monthly average of 27,000 rupiah each from January to April this year.

A highlight of the Asean consensus is that basic rights of migrant workers and their family members must be ensured in accordance with the prevailing laws and regulations of member states.

The rights group Migrant Care praised the move, saying that President Widodo's request to Mr Najib should be followed by government efforts to improve worker protection.

"Government agencies can no longer treat this as business as usual. There should be a tremendous effort to ensure that the country is committed to the protection of our migrant workers," Migrant Care executive director Wahyu Susilo told Asia Focus.

Mr Widodo has also asked Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi and Manpower Minister Hanif Dhakiri to expedite negotiations on a bilateral memorandum of understanding (MoU) on the protection of Indonesian workers in Malaysia.

"Now that we have the consensus, we could have better equal standing to negotiate the MoU," the director for the protection and placement of Indonesian migrant workers abroad at the Manpower Ministry, Soes Hindharno told Asia Focus.

Mr Susilo from Migrant Care agreed that the timing of the MoU was good, as Malaysia would be onliged to abide by the principles highligthed in the new consensus.

Mr Hindharno said the MoU would also seek to ensure that workers could keep their passports. The new consensus recognises the longstanding problem of employers seizing passports in many countries.

As well, workers should be allowed visitation rights by family members and should be able to maintain regular communications with their families and the Indonesian embassy or consulate. They should also be allowed to take one day off a week, and to have their salaries transferred to a bank account to prevent shortfalls or misuse when paid in cash.

"We are doing our part and living up to obligations as a sending country to equip them with better skills and financial literacy and to improve their English so that it would be good enough for a casual conversation," Mr Hindharno said.

A bilateral MoU with a receiving country is required under the amended 2004 law on placement of migrant workers abroad, which the Indonesian parliament passed on Oct 25 after years of deliberations.

"Otherwise we can't send migrant workers to a country with which we don't have such an agreement, unless the receiving country already has a law that could ensure protection to the workers' rights, such as Singapore," he said.

Next month, Indonesia also expects to finalise an MoU with Brunei, where 5,769 Indonesians are employed mainly as domestic workers, MrHindharno said.

Despite its shortcomings, the consensus opens the possibility for migrant workers' rights advocates to have their say when member states gather again to start drafting a regional action plan.

"But will the Asean goverments repeat their mistakes by excluding migrant workers in drafting the action plan?" asked Mr Awigra of HRWG.

"The most important thing in this action plan is that it should be able to push for amendments of prevailing national laws in Asean member states to protect and promote migrant workers' rights, instead of the other way around."

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