For Immediate release.

10 June 2010

Indonesia must enact Domestic Workers Protection Law now

Committee for Asian Women calls on the Indonesian parliament to prioritise the deliberation and enactment of the Domestic Workers Protection Bill of 2010, submitted to the House of Representatives in 2009 for the purpose of recognising legal rights of domestic workers in Indonesia. There are an estimated 2.6 million domestic workers in Indonesia with the overwhelming majority consisting of women and young girls. The National Network for Domestic Workers Advocacy (JALA PRT) estimates this number to have doubled in the last decade.  Indonesian migrant domestic workers form a growing majority in Hongkong, Singapore, Malaysia and the Middle East. They have suffered countless arrests, deportations, sexual and physical abuse, starvation, inhumane punishment and death at the hands of recruitment agencies, immigration officials and employers themselves. Despite these there is a serious lack of mechanisms to regulate and monitor the employment of domestic workers.

Indonesia cannot afford to delay further legislation for the protection of their nationals especially when working in conditions of severe vulnerabilities. In light of continuing exploitation and abuse of domestic workers, failure to enact a law can result in deliberate neglect.  On the other hand a national law for Indonesian domestic workers will enhance the enforcement of bilateral agreements between Indonesia as sending country and migrant receiving countries. It will begin to provide legal support towards eradicating slave-like working conditions for domestic workers, especially women and children.

Domestic workers are entitled to labour and human rights standards similar to those guaranteed to regular workers. They are invisible backbones of the major economies of the world because of their nurturing and reproductive role in the household which allow their employers to participate in the larger economic activity of their societies. This is the reason behind an International Labour Conference currently in Geneva, which aims to adopt an ILO Convention on Domestic Work. Indonesia occupies a momentous place in labour history, when it becomes the first Southeast Asian country to recognise domestic workers as workers, by law.

Lucia Victor Jayaseelan

Executive Coordinator

Committee for Asian Women