essay review- Vulnerability of Indonesian Female Migrant Workers to Violence
Violence towards female migrant workers from Indonesia has been one of the many unfinished businesses in the Indonesian governance. Since 1969, Indonesian government has officially allowed their workers to migrate for work overseas. Although, since then, they may have benefit the government financially, but, it can’t also be denied that most of the female migrant workers are experiencing abusive treatment throughout the process. In fact, the law that protects Indonesian migrant workers is not effective enough to protect female migrant workers from facing violent treatments. The law doesn’t provide proper education and training, communication, it provides high placement cost and doesn’t include all migrant workers. Due to these loopholes, Indonesian female migrant workers will struggle in working and worst they can experience violence. In order to reduce the increasing number of abuse towards Indonesian female migrant workers, the government will have to modify their laws that defend female migrant workers and uphold their rights thus they can work overseas with proper protection and support from the origin country.
The Indonesian government protection law doesn’t completely include all female migrant workers from Indonesia. Indonesian female migrant workers most likely choose to migrate without government intervention. This eventually causes them to enter other countries illegally. Until now, Indonesian government still haven’t provided protection for undocumented migrant workers. In her article, “Assets or Commodities? Comparing Regulations of Placement and Protection of Migrant Workers in Indonesia and the Philippines,” Dinita Setyawati argues that “[t]he differing views on protection of undocumented migrant workers make Indonesian workers more vulnerable towards physical torture and other poor treatment by their employers” (273). The author claims that if Indonesian migrant workers migrate for work to other countries without the government’s authorization they will not receive the same protection. And, without protection violence can easily take place. Because of this loophole inside the law to whom it is referring to, causes Indonesian migrant workers to be more vulnerable to violence. Also, intervention from the government can be in a form of education which female migrant workers rarely achieve.
The lack of proper preparation can also increase the probability of Indonesian female migrant workers to violence. The Indonesian government unknowingly push their female migrant workers to more likely to migrate with agencies. Most of the times, agencies provide more affordable cost and less complex placement. However, many agencies provide less preparation before migrating such as incomplete pre-departure training. Female migrant workers “should receive about their rights and how to access assistance in cases of exploitation or abuse. Considering the weak supervision, monitoring and regulation of the recruitment agencies, it seems likely that many labour migrants do not receive any information on these issues and are inadequately prepared for labour conditions overseas” (IOS 24). Preparation that is provided by agencies are not enough for migrant workers to be able to face unpredictable circumstances while working abroad. Improper pre-departure training that Indonesian migrant workers have cause them to be more unaware about the unpredictable situations that they can experience such as abuse, and eventually it’ll become difficult for them to avoid. Not merely training, but the lack of education can also affect their safety working abroad.
Low awareness on the whole process of migration can impact on their safety working abroad. Other than having less pre-departure training, agencies also provide weak education on their rights and information about the countries they are intended to work in. Dila Fhadila Ramadhani claims that “[a] failure in comprehending culture not only can block communication but worse it can threaten their own safety. Violence of migrant workers in foreign countries can also be caused by the low awareness of migrant workers towards the culture and customs of a country or a region” (57). Having less knowledge about the conditions and culture of the countries that female migrant workers migrating can cause them to experience violent treatments. In their article “Legal Protection and Advocacy for Indonesian Migrant Worker,” Henni Wijayanti and Arovah Windiani states that “[s]tudies conducted in three origin areas of Indonesian female migrant workers find that female migrants/potential female migrant workers are poorly informed about all aspects of the migration process or the working conditions in foreign countries. Their important sources of information are mainly a recruitment agency (brokers) they know very well. This places migrants/potential migrants in a very weak position and they may easily become victims of exploitation” (1008). Recruitment agencies provide little information about the facets of the migration process and lead to low awareness about them and can increase the occurrence of violence. Lack of knowledge about the conditions of the country they’re migrating to and lack of information about the facet of the migration process lead them to violence.
Communication between female migrant workers and their family is critical to whether abuse can occur or not. One of the consequences that female migrant workers must face is having to work with distance with their families. Worse is communication between them may be cut off until their working period is due. In her article, “Policy and Institutional Framework of Indonesia,” Stephanie Barral claims that family members of female migrant workers “do not, for instance, receive important documents related to their family member abroad. Many migrants cease to communicate with their families while they are abroad” (10). During female migrant workers working period, their families are limited to new information about them or even able to lose communication with them. Loss of communication “is problematic for the individual migrant, as isolated and lonely labour migrants will find it more difficult to contact relevant authorities for assistance in cases of exploitation and abuse” (IOM 16). With the loss of communication, it’ll be difficult for female migrant workers to reach out to their family for help if they’re experiencing injustice treatments. The loss of communication between Indonesian female migrant workers and their families can cause them to unable to ask for help if they’re experiencing abusive treatments overseas. Moreover, many female migrant workers are placed to work at the domestic sector which has low safety. Indonesian government needs to limit migrating their female migrant workers who work in the domestic sector to countries that have protection towards domestic workers in their law. The majority of Indonesian female migrant workers are working in the domestic sector because women’s ability is often viewed as being able to do activities that are more household-related. But, working domestically, also mean that the female workers will get less protection from the government because they are working outside the country and mainly work more for individual residences. Female migrant workers who works domestically “is often not covered by labour laws in the destination country and because it is carried out in private residences it is extremely difficult for authorities to monitor for the workers to seek assistance if they need it. This makes domestic workers more vulnerable to exploitative labour practices, physical and mental abuse and withholding of wages” (IOM 9). Indonesian female migrant workers are often placed at countries that have little protection towards them and work domestically with individuals and it makes them more vulnerable to violent treatments both physically and mentally. Female migrant workers become more accessible to mistreatments while working caused by the government that keeps on transferring their workers to countries that don’t acknowledge the protection of domestic workers. Furthermore, female migrant workers have the tendency to look for jobs out of Indonesia because of the instability of the economic conditions in Indonesia.
Due to the high number of unemployment, Indonesian migrant workers seek for jobs out of their state. Indonesian government is still struggling on trying to stabilize the increasing number of unemployment in Indonesia. As a result, most female migrant workers choose to migrate to other countries to look for better jobs to make their and their families lives to be better. “National labour migration policies in Indonesia are still primarily concerned with reducing local unemployment, and thus tend to focus more on facilitating the outflow of migrant labour rather than creating a protection mechanism for migrants” (IOM 14). Because unemployment in Indonesia is still relatively hard to be reduced thus the government’s focus towards the safety of female migrant workers definitely will easily be disturbed. However, if the government still hasn’t look more into the protection of their female migrant workers, the number of unprotected female migrant workers will continue to increase then they will still encounter harsh treatments. Indonesian female migrant workers have little knowledge about SRHR (Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights) information and services and it makes them to be unaware of the signs of abuse and their rights. The SRHR services provide the right for women to choose their partner and also provide information about other sexual rights for women. Thaufiek Zulbahary points out that “access for Indonesian women migrant workers to SRHR information and services are exceptionally limited. Women and migrant workers are vulnerable to rape and unwanted pregnancy, while they face lack of access to safe reproductive health and abortion services” (13). Women migrant workers from Indonesia, have little knowledge about SRHR and also little access to SRHR services while they are working overseas. Because of the lack of knowledge about SRHR information, it will be difficult for Indonesian female migrant workers to notice the signs of violence.
The law that protects Indonesian migrant workers depend more on the intervention of recruitment agencies not on the Indonesian government. Since, most of Indonesian female migrant workers migrate with agencies, all their arrangements will be conducted by the recruitment agencies themselves. However, many recruitment agents are doing illegal practices instead of protecting the female migrant workers. In Wa Ode Nirmala Ningrum’s article “Problems Faced by Indonesian Female Migrant Workers and the Empowerment through Writings (Organisations): A Case Study of Indonesian Female Migrant Workers in Hong Kong,” she argues that “[a]s a whole it could be said that female migrant workers grief may start from ‘tricked’ by brokers, employment agents, or the employer. The word tricked here can mean seduced by grandiose promises, been cheated by not shipped, taken partly of her rights, being held a few days in shelters, abused in the workplace, raped or forced to serve employers and their children, and perhaps even been killed” (230). Female migrant workers migrating without government intervention tend to experience inappropriate treatments by deceiving agencies. Because of low supervision by the government towards the conditions of Indonesian female migrant workers in recruitment agencies, the government will be unaware about many maltreatments that Indonesian female migrant workers experienced and wouldn’t be able to decrease them.
Stories of returning female migrant workers also plays an important part in the occurrence of abuse. Most of the female migrant workers that experienced violence will be deported back to their home country, Indonesia. Indonesian female migrant workers “with little knowledge of conditions abroad and their own rights, this means that labour migrants often choose to remain silent about abuses” (IOM 39). The lack of knowledge about their rights female causes migrant workers from Indonesia to become unwilling to report if they’re experiencing violence. On top of that, “many returned labour migrants who are unable to report any problems they have experienced” (IOM 13). Female migrant workers also incapable of sharing the issues that they’ve encounter after returning from work overseas. Because of they have a deficient amount of knowledge about their own rights and they also most of them couldn’t even share their issues, the awareness towards violence on Indonesian female migrant workers will remain low and will result in female migrant workers will keep
Works Cited
Setyawati, Dinita. “Assets or Commodities? Comparing Regulations of Placement and Protection of Migrant Workers in Indonesia and the Philippines.” Austrian Journal of South-East Asian Studies / Österreichische Zeitschrift Für Südostasienwissenschaften, vol. 6, no. 2, Dec. 2013, pp. 264-80. Academic Search Complete, doi: 10.4232/10.ASEAS-6.2-3.
Zulbahary, Thaufiek. “Indonesia: The Solidaritas Perempuan’s Experience in Increasing Women Migrant Workers’ Access to SRHR Information and Services.” Arrows for Change, vol. 19, no. 1, Mar. 2013, pp. 12-14. Academic Search Complete, ezproxy.shoreline.edu:2081/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer? vid=6&sid=54b8763b-4d9e-4af3-b535-bd651ba33223%40sessionmgr4010.
International Organization for Migration[IOM]. (2012). Labor Migration from Indonesia: An Overview of Indonesian Migration to Selected Destinations in Asia and the Middle East. Jakarta, Indonesia: IOM.
Barral, Stephanie. Policy and Institutional Framework of Indonesia. European University Institute, Oct. 2014, cadmus.eui.eu/bitstream/handle/1814/32248/INTERACT-RR-2014%20-%2009.pdf; sequence=1.
Ningrum, Wa Ode Nirmala. “Problems Faced by Indonesian Female Migrant Workers and the Empowerment through Writings (Organisations): A Case Study of Indonesian Female Migrant Workers in Hong Kong.” International Journal of Arts & Sciences, vol. 4, no. 13, 2011, pp. 225-36. Proquest, www.shoreline.edu:2048/login?url=https://ezproxy.shoreline.edu:2221/docview/927581424?accountid=1164.
Wijayanti, Henni, and Arovah Windiani. “Legal Protection and Advocacy for Indonesian Migrant Workers.” Proceedings, vol. 1, no. 1, Nov. 2016, pp. 1003-09. IMC 2016 Proceedings, jurnal.umj.ac.id/index.php/IMC/article/download/1300/1171.
What are you planning on adding/working on for the final draft? what are your revision goals? what are your completion goals?
What I’m planning to add and work on for the final draft is providing more evidence in a couple of my sub-claims. I acknowledge that my sub-claims are not supported enough by my evidences. Next, I’m planning to try to decrease the usage of repetitive words in my essay. My revision goals are to fix my grammars and to check on each of the citation. Making sure that there are no grammar errors and citation errors in both in the work cited page and in the paragraphs. My completion goals will probably be able to finish the paper and really able to convince the reader about my major claim.
