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Moratorium on sending workers to Saudi starts Aug. 1, 2011

JAKARTA LIFE'S STYLE

Indonesia will issue a moratorium on sending workers to Saudi Arabia that will take effect Aug. 1, following the nationwide outcry over the recent beheading of an Indonesian maid by Saudi authorities.

Indonesian Manpower and Transmigration Minister Muhaimin Iskandar said Wednesday in Jakarta that the moratorium would last until the governments of both countries signed an accord on the protection of Indonesian migrant workers in the Middle Eastern country and established a joint taskforce responsible for taking care of the issue.

“After a number of considerations and upon learning of the impacts of the semi-moratorium in the past three months, the Indonesian government has decided to issue a moratorium on sending Indonesian migrant workers to Saudi Arabia,” Muhaimin said in a press statement.

The term “semi-moratorium” refers to tighter procedures in sending workers abroad that were implemented in January, a move that followed intensive media reports on the torture of Sumiati, another Indonesian maid working in Saudi Arabia, last year.

Since the semi-moratorium took effect, Muhaimin said, there had been a drastic drop in requests for Indonesian workers in the Middle Eastern state, from an average of some 1,000 demands per day before the policy took effect to merely five requests between January and June.

“Along with tightened measures, there have been fewer Indonesian migrant workers because of the drastic drop of those sent to Saudi Arabia, from about 30,000 per month to between 12,000 and 15,000 per month.”

The recently beheaded maid, Ruyati binti Satubi, was sentenced to death after being found guilty of killing the wife of her Saudi employer. Reports said she had previously been subject to repeated abuse while in their employ.

Saudi Ambassador to Indonesia Abdulrahman Mohammed Amen al-Khayyat was summoned on Wednesday for the second time this week, this time to meet Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa over the case, after meeting the ministry’s director for Middle Eastern affairs Ronny Prasetyo Yuliantoro on Monday upon receiving a diplomatic protest.

Foreign ministry spokesman Michael Tene said the minister handed his letter to the Saudi envoy on Wednesday, to be forwarded to his Saudi counterpart, Prince Saud Al-Faisal.

The letter, Michael said, expressed the government’s concern about the lack of transparency surrounding Ruyati’s execution and demanded that her remains be returned to her family regardless of the kingdom’s regulation stipulating that a death convict’s body must be buried soon after execution.

Michael said in the letter that the government urged the Saudi government to immediately sit together with its representatives to draw up a memorandum of understanding on Indonesian migrant worker protection and to start deliberating a bilateral agreement on mandatory consular notification proposed by Indonesia.

Separately on Wednesday, House of Representatives deputy speaker Pramono Anung said House leaders were scheduled on Thursday to have a consultative meeting with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono at the State Palace to discuss migrant worker issues.

(Jakarta Post)
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