Jakarta,
Jan 13 (ANTARA) - The Indonesian government has planned to stop
exporting domestic helpers abroad in 2017 and replace them with sending
skilled workers for recruitment in the formal sectors.
Most
of Indonesian migrant workers overseas are so far domestic helpers who
work with individual employers so that they are prone to abuses like
what have frequently happened to Indonesian house maids in Malaysia and
the Middle East.
Therefore, Indonesia, which receives an average annual remittance of
Rp100 trillion from millions of migrant workers in 116 countries, is
planning to send only skilled workers in the formal sectors abroad.
"The interest of migrant workers could be guaranteed if they work in
the formal sectors in various companies or organizations under official
work contracts," Moh Jumhur Hidayat, the head of the National Agency for
Placement and Protection of Workers Abroad (BNP2TKI), said here on
Wednesday.
To realize its program of placing formal workers abroad, the government
has drawn up a zero domestic worker roadmap scheme to be fully
implemented in 2017.
The program will be started with Indonesian migrant workers in
Singapore. Singapore will serve as the first country for Indonesia's
roadmap pilot project.
"We will use Singapore as a place for the zero domestic worker pilot
projects," Manpower and Transmigration Minister Muhaimin Iskandar said
here on Sunday.
He said that the government will in stages change the status of
Indonesian house maids in Singapore into four formal categories where
domestic helpers will change status and work either as a house keeper,
cook, and baby sitter or as caregiver.
"We will change it in stages. Indonesian migrant workers who work as
house maids in Singapore will later have clear and formal status,"
Muhaimin Iskandar said.
He said that the Indonesian government would make its migrant workers
who worked as housemaids in Singapore as a pilot project for its zero
domestic worker roadmap program.
The
minister made the remarks following his working visit to Singapore. As a
consequence of the project, the Indonesian migrant workers in Singapore
must be trained so that they would have the skills that they needed.
He
said that the step was part of the preparations for the implementation
of the country's zero domestic worker roadmap schemes.
At present, the number of Indonesian citizens staying in Singapore
reached 197,913, of whom 104,437 are workers in the informal sectors,
19,451 sailors, 11,521 in the service sector, 24,529 students, 9,451
professionals and 28,838 others (housewives and senior citizens).
For this purpose, the Ministry of Manpower and the Foreign Ministry
through the Indonesian Embassy in Singapore has agreed to empower the
Indonesian migrant workers in Singapore by providing them with a special
training program.
They will attend training/courses on computer skills, English, Mandarin, beauty parlor and others.
"The government also agreed that Indonesian would-be workers should
take courses or training at least 200 hours, so it could be guaranteed
that workers going to Singapore, for example, have the work skills," the
minister said.
As the government has decided to stop sending house maids overseas,
would-be workers as well as those already employed abroad should get
training.
And
for this, the government, particularly manpower suppliers, should
provide training programs for workers both at home and abroad.
As regards, the Indonesian Manpower Suppliers Association (Apjati) will
work out a plan for a fund collection to finance the program.
According
to Apjati chairman Ayub Basalamah, his association plans to earmark
US$120 million per annum as a funding scheme for protection and training
programs of Indonesian workers.
He said that the funds were to be collected from employers' recruitment
fees. "The funding scheme will be agreed in a multilateral meeting of
the manpower suppliers association in Jakarta next March.
"Apjati
and its partners have agreed in the Middle East the establishment of
the funding scheme --including the mechanism of fund collection-- for
protection and training programs," Ayub said.
In
the Middle East, employers pay US$1,200 in recruiting fees for Saudi
Arabia and US$1,500 - US$1,700 in the United Arab Emirates and other
Middle Eastern countries.
"We will negotiate so that employers in Saudi Arabia will pay an equal
amount to that paid in the United Arab Emirates," the Apjadi chairman
said.
He said that the Apjati would set aside US$100 for workers protection
funds. "If placement of workers in the Middle East is reopened, there
would be about 40,000 Indonesian workers to be placed there, which means
that some US$4 million of recruitment fees could be collected for
protection scheme funds per month," he said.
If the amount is multiplied by 12, the funds to be collected would
reach US$456 billion per annum. The funds would also be used to finance
the opening of the Apjati branch offices in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait,
Bahrain, Jordan, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Syria, Malaysia,
Singapore, Brunei Darussalam, Taiwan and Hong Kong.
With the establishment of the funding scheme for helping workers
improve their skills, the government is expected to be able to implement
its zero house maid roadmap in 2017.
Now the placement of skill workers abroad has exceeded the number of those place in the informal sectors.
According to BNP2TKI head Jumhur, a total of 494,604 Indonesian
migrant workers were sent abroad in 2012. The number of those placed in
the formal sectors (258.411) had for the first time exceeded that in
the informal sectors (236,198).
"We hope the placement of workers in the formal sectors overseas would
continue to increase in line with the improvement of the would-be
workers' skills," Jumhur said.***4***
(T.A014/S012)
(T.A014/A/A014/S012) 13-01-2013 22:30: |
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