JAKARTA - Cases of violence faced by migrant workers, especially women, is a failure of government’s policy, says an Indonesian Church official.“Violence against migrant workers is the miniature of a bad policy taken by our government,” said Father Serafin Dany Sanusi, executive secretary of the bishops’ Commission for Justice and Peace and the Pastoral Migrants and Itinerant People.
He said violence against migrant workers ensue due to the government’s lack of a management system between the sending and receiving countries.
Migrant Care reported that 5,563 migrant workers, mostly women, have experienced physical and sexual abuses so far. One recent case would be that of Sumiati Binti Salan Mustapa, a 23-year-old woman working in Saudi Arabia, who suffered from physical abuse.
“Well, the number is not important. We must pay attention to migrant workers and respect humans,” the Crosier priest added.
Commenting on the recent case, he hoped the government will soon handle it and improve its policy in order to prevent it from happening again.
He also suggested that the government change its paradigm and start seeing migrant workers as “ambassadors” instead of “commodities.”
Meanwhile, Migrant Care’s Executive Director Anis Hidayah acknowledged that some women working in Saudi Arabia suffer from physical and sexual abuses. They also did not receive payment from working overtime.
“About 90 percent of 1.2 million Indonesians working in Saudi Arabia are in a bad situation,” she lamented, saying that Indonesia and Saudi Arabia have no bilateral agreement on migrant workers’ protection yet.
She added that the government should empower women so they would not need to work overseas.
Source: Cathnews India
