[Kabar-indonesia] ST: Jakarta Wants More Jobless Workers to Go Overseas

[JoyoNews at aol.com]

The Straits Times (Singapore)
Tuesday, October 3, 2006

Jakarta wants more jobless workers to go overseas

Country will benefit from increase 
in remittances, says top official

Salim Osman, Indonesia correspondent

JAKARTA - INDONESIA will encourage more of its unemployed to find work
abroad because the domestic economy has been unable to create enough
jobs, a top government official says.

Having more people working overseas will also benefit the country
because the money they remit home will serve as a source of foreign
exchange. At present, remittances total at least 25 trillion rupiah
(S$4.3 billion) a year.

'It is our priority to send as many of our workers abroad as possible
because employment opportunities here are limited,' said Mr Mardjono,
the director in charge of protecting migrant workers, at the Manpower
Ministry.

At least 10 per cent of the country's 220 million population are
unemployed and many thousands enter the labour market every year.

Mr Mardjono said that four million Indonesians now work abroad. He
estimated that 75 per cent of them are skilled workers holding
technical jobs in the industrial and manufacturing sectors, while the
rest are domestic maids.

'However, in future, we will send only skilled workers abroad. It will
mean more remittances from them as they will be better paid,' he said
at a panel discussion organised by the Jakarta Foreign Correspondents
Club.

He added that the government will set up a special agency this month
to protect migrant workers and oversee the labour export programme.
Around 350,000 Indonesian workers find employment overseas each year
through licensed job agencies.

'This agency will report directly to the President and not to the
Manpower Ministry,' he said.

This follows criticism that the government has done little to protect
overseas workers, who often end up being victimised by officials and
thugs.

Mr Wahyu Susilo, chairman of Migrant Care, said that many workers have
to sell their property or borrow money from loan sharks to go abroad.

'They are fleeced when applying for immigration documents and are
subject to inhuman treatment when undergoing training,' he said.

Mr Chairul Hadi of the Indonesian Migrant Workers Association said
that workers returning from abroad also have to go through a different
terminal at the Jakarta airport and are thus vulnerable to those out
to exploit them.

They are also at the mercy of a transportation syndicate at Terminal 3, he 
said.

Workers have been known to pay up to 250,000 rupiah for a one-way trip
to Cianjur, West Java, instead of the usual 40,000 rupiah, and 1
million rupiah to West Nusa Tenggara instead of 400,000 rupiah.

Others have been forced to change foreign currency into Indonesian
rupiah at low rates by bus drivers who threaten to abandon them on the
way home if they do not comply, he added.

Responding to the complaints, Mr Mardjono said that the authorities
are posting officials at the airport to address problems.

At least 40 labour agencies have already been deregistered for
extorting money from workers, he added.

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Joyo Indonesia News Service
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