Indonesia bans maids recruitment to Kuwait

Monday, October 19, 2009

Published Date: October 15, 2009
By Ben Garcia, Staff writer
http://www.kuwaittimes.net/read_news.php?newsid=NzAyNzQ0NjU3

UWAIT: The Indonesian Labor Ministry has temporarily suspended deployment of Indonesian housemaids to Kuwait. The decision was implemented in Jakarta by the Indonesian Ministry of Labor at least until the issues of some 600 runaway housemaids are resolved.

We are sad to issue this decision, but it is for the greater benefit of our workers," said Indonesian Ambassador to Kuwait and Bahrain, Faisal Ismail, as he spoke with the Kuwait Times yesterday about the new development. "The Ministry of Labor in Jakarta implemented the order in mid-September. We currently have around 600 runaway housemaids at our embassy. They have issues that need to be resolved, and although the government of Kuwait has been very helpful, until their concerns are resolved we have to temporarily suspend deployment," said ambassador Ismail. "We shall enforce the order and we'll do our best to help our compatriots resolve their cases in Kuwait.

Ismail said more improvements when it comes to their worker's welfare in Kuwait were needed in order to scrap the new suspension order. "If Kuwait shows more improvements in how they can protect our workers and resolve our domestic laborers' issues, then we shall deploy workers once more. It has something to do with the improvement in treatment and conditions with regards to our workers. Yes, the issues here are many, but they are helping us. Meanwhile, the moratorium will continue until a new order comes
from our Ministry of Labor," he reiterated.

Meanwhile, Ambassador Ismail mentioned the complete termination of their previous cooperation with the Kuwait Union for Domestic Labor Offices (KUDLO) since their problems could not be settled by KUDLO alone. Months ago, KUDLO was accused by several local recruitment agencies of monopolizing the Indonesian domestic labor market. They promised that issues of Indonesian housemaids could be settled under their scheme, but they failed. KUDLO represents about 13 recruitment agencies against more than 400 other
agencies not associated or connected with KUDLO.

We already cut the cooperation agreement with KUDLO with regards to exclusive recruitment of our workers. As you know, there have been numerous oppositions to that scheme, and besides, they cannot resolve housemaid's cases alone," he said. There are around 80,000 Indonesians in Kuwait, of which 60,000 are engaged in domestic labor.

Govt demanded to ratify UN convention

Written and published by The Jakarta Post, Fri, 10/16/2009 2:36 PM and can be found at http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2009/10/16/govt-demanded-ratify-un-convention.html

The National Commission for Women has urged the government to ratify the 1990 UN Convention on female migrant worker protection to look after millions of Indonesian female migrant workers.

The organization's commissioner, Sri Wiyanti Eddyono, said recently the government signed the UN convention but was yet to approve it - even though the country had migrant workers in numerous countries since the 1980s.

Sri said the government issued a law on the protection of workers abroad. She said it regulated most labor-supplying companies, and prevented labor smuggling and illegal migrants.

According to Sri, if the UN convention was ratified it could be a legal base for female migrant workers to settle disputes with employers, and demand their wage, work hours and leave rights were met.

The chairman of the National Agency for the Placement and Protection of Indonesian Migrant Workers, Jumhur Hidayat, admitted the government was yet to commit to protecting migrant workers, which the Constitution should guarantee.

"The convention has not seriously been considered by the government," he said. Jumhur also said he expected the next minister to propose the convention be ratified.

It was claimed the government had declined to ratify the UN convention since countries employing Indonesian workers had not yet authorized it.

Sri said Indonesia should not supply workers to countries that refused to ratify the convention.

He also said female Indonesian migrant workers consistently filed physical and sexual assault complaints they experienced in their workplaces abroad."Some employers also take their employees' passports. This means they cannot leave the country, even though they have been abused and exploited," she said.

Jumhur also said many female migrant workers who suffered from mistreatment were domestic workers. He added a great number of female migrant workers from Indonesia had suffered from abuse while some had died as a consequence. He said most domestic workers were regulated by the domestic workers law - not the labor law.

Indonesia has signed a bilateral agreement with Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and South Korea to prevent abuse in the workplace.

However, labor abuse is rife in countries that have not deployed regulation to protect employees' rights in the workplace.

MYANMAR: Burmese migrants struggle in Malaysia

PENANG, 14 October 2009 (IRIN) - In the tourist city of Penang in northern Malaysia, the Buddhist temple has become the locus of social and economic support for migrants from Myanmar.

"l was a contractor at home, but left Burma [Myanmar] 19 years ago, arriving in Malaysia after crossing from Thailand," said Aung Tin, a foreman on the construction site of a new pagoda.

Penang is one of Malaysia's main economic and industrial centres, and the Burmese Buddhist temple provides social and religious support for the Burmese community.

At the construction site, all 14 staff supervised by Aung Tin - who would only talk to IRIN using a pseudonym - are Burmese migrants.

"I left as soon as I could after the 1990 elections," said Aung Tin. "The economic situation in the country was bad for years before then, and I had not been able to generate enough work. When I saw that the army was going to keep things the same, it became clear that I could not make a living,"

In 1990, Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) won the last election held in Myanmar, but the military rulers overturned the result, and have run the country since.

Aung Tin left behind a wife and two sons, whom he has not seen since. His boys are now grown up, and like their father, want to leave their home country.

When Cyclone Nargis devastated Myanmar in 2008, his family's home was one of more than three million destroyed. "All my money was sent home to help repair my house," he said.

Employment magnet

Myanmar is one of the most impoverished countries in the region, and ranks 138 out of 182 countries surveyed in the UN Development Programme's (UNDP) 2009 Human Development Report.

Limited employment prospects encourage many to look for opportunities in neighbouring countries. Thailand is the main destination for Burmese workers, but Malaysia is also favoured, along with Bangladesh and India, according to a 2008 UN report on migration in East and Southeast Asia.

Accurate figures of how many Burmese are leaving Myanmar are difficult to obtain because much of the movement is irregular, say civil society groups.

Malaysia is heavily dependent on foreign labour for its construction and plantation industries, and is a magnet for migrant workers in the region. According to government statistics, there were 92,020 registered Burmese workers in 2006, comprising 5 percent of the total registered workers.

Rights groups, however, say there are also thousands of unregistered Burmese in the country; the Kuala Lumpur-based Burma Workers' Rights Protection Committee estimates there are about 500,000 registered and unregistered migrants from Myanmar in Malaysia.

And as of May 2009, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said it had registered 50,000 people of concern from Myanmar, including refugees and asylum-seekers.

Under threat

Aung Tin's story is similar to those of many migrant workers in Malaysia. He had a work permit originally but has veered back and forth between legal and illegal status since.

Many Burmese find work at construction sites, factories and food outlets, according to Malaysian rights groups. If they were recruited or brought in to work at factories, they are often provided with accommodation. But while some employers provide proper living facilities, others force their workers to live in overcrowded and cramped conditions.

Rights groups say many Burmese migrants as well as refugees do not carry legal documents, and face arrest, detention and deportation by the Malaysian authorities.

Deportees, both migrant workers and refugees, are then vulnerable to human traffickers at the Malaysia-Thailand border, who demand huge sums of money to help them get back into Malaysia, they say.

"Another problem that the Burmese face is extortion from the police," said Temme Lee, refugee coordinator for Malaysian rights group Suaram.

"Due to their lack of proper documentation, Burmese are often stopped by police. The police threaten to arrest them and demand money from them," she told IRIN.

Despite his perilous and often haphazard situation, Aung Tin is one of the better-off migrants. He earns 50 Malaysian ringgit (US$14.80) per day as foreman at the construction project.

"The monks look after us here, and try to give us work," he said.

CARAM Asia Reaffirms its membership of the Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network

Thursday, October 15, 2009

As a network committed to advocating for the rights of mobile populations, last year CARAM Asia was invited to attend the first Asia Pacific Consultation on Refugee Rights arranged by Forum Asia in order to increase the capacity and advocacy tools of local refugee groups. Following this consultation, participants agreed to form a loose regional network was formed known as the Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network (APRRN) to share information concerning ongoing issues.

Last week, CARAM Asia attended the second annual meeting of APRRN members which was held in Bangkok. This year’s meeting sought to build on the existing relationships formed last year, while simultaneously strengthening both the solidarity and communication within the membership. It is extremely positive to note that over the past year, the membership has increased by at least a 25%.

It is a testament to the members and the hard work of the steering committee, that the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) increased their own participation in this event. The UNHCR, led by the South East Asia Regional Coordinator Raymond Hall, agreed with the civil society delegation that there was a need to increase the lines of advocacy and communication of the two parties in order to best advocate for refugee rights in the area. Further means of lobbying states to adopt the 1951 Refugee Convention was also discussed as well as other issues that related to the mutual beneficial capacity of the two parties.

CARAM Asia used the opportunity to highlight the cross cutting issues facing both refugees and migrants including the right to health issues. Moreover the network was able to place a regional perspective on the treatment of mobile populations as well as to expand on our existing contacts within the field. Over the four days, wider issues were raised including the treatment in detention centres as well as the increased vulnerability faced by women and girls. As a member of this network CARAM Asia has continued its participation in both the Right to Health Working Group (RTHWG) as well as being a member of the geographical South East Asia team.

CARAM Asia will continue to work as a proud member of this new network in order to advocate for the rights of mobile populations especially those that relate to health and gender.

2nd Asia Pacific Consultation on Refugee Rights A Success

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

By Kitty McKinsey, In Bangkok, Thailand - UNHCR News Stories

BANGKOK, Thailand, October 12 2009 (UNHCR) – With more refugees on the move but few Asian countries giving them a warm welcome, representatives of civil society and non-governmental organizations from 19 Asian and Pacific countries have met in Thailand to strategize on how to press for greater refugee rights.

The second meeting of the UNHCR-backed Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network (APRRN), which wrapped up last Saturday, brought together more than 100 individuals representing advocacy groups from a broad region where protection of refugees often depends on political discretion rather than written laws.

"Much of Asia is a vacuum in terms of asylum law and institutions," Raymond Hall, UNHCR's regional representative and regional coordinator for Southeast Asia, told the opening session. "Our strategy should be to encourage governments to change this and to take a greater degree of ownership over refugee protection.

"With large-scale irregular migration and increasing numbers of people seeking asylum, the day may come when governments close down the fragile protection space that does exist," he warned.

Groups within the APRRN campaign for an end to detention of refugees – a major problem in many Asian countries – and try to improve refugees' access to basic services, such as health care. They also fight to ensure refugees' access to legal aid, and look out for the rights of girls and women.

Eileen Pittaway, director of the Centre for Refugee Research in Australia, advised refugee advocates to be cautious in how they represent refugees: "We can assist them in making their voices heard, not speak for them."

Tom Vargas, UNHCR's Bangkok-based senior regional protection officer, said he was pleased with the growth of the network since its establishment a year ago in the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur. "We are very enthusiastic about working with them," he stressed. "They can add new impetus to advocacy for asylum-seekers at the national and regional level."

Vargas said the big change "is that NGOs have usually focused on the rights of their own nationals, but now they are fighting more for the rights of non-nationals, for refugees."

In a dialogue with UNHCR, representatives of the NGOs and civil society groups expressed concern that many refugees in Asia have trouble getting identity cards and are subject to arbitrary arrest and detention.

"We are functioning in a region," Hall agreed, "where asylum-seekers and refugees have little legal protection, and where an asylum-seeker is almost by definition an illegal immigrant in the eyes of the law."

OFW welfare group vs compulsory insurance

By Veronica Uy, (INQUIRER.net) 10/13/2009
Found at http://globalnation.inquirer.net/news/breakingnews/view/20091013-229848/OFW-welfare-group-vs-compulsory-insurance

MANILA, Philippines — The Center for Migrant Advocacy, which looks after the welfare of and policy issues concerning overseas Filipino workers, on Tuesday opposed the proposed law requiring compulsory insurance coverage for OFWs.

Members of the bicameral conference committee to amend Republic Act 8042 or the Migrant Workers Rights could not agree on this either.

CMA executive director Ellene Sana said that while the intention to cover all OFWs is good, it is bound to follow the fate of the $25 membership fee for Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA).

The fee is supposed to be paid by the employer, but is usually paid by the OFWs themselves.

Sana said the government—not private insurance companies, recruiters, or OFWs—should provide OFW protection.

She said the present voluntary insurance coverage should stay. The proposal “opens up another multi-million dollar insurance business at $75 per OFW. Madaming kikita ditto (Many will earn from this),” she said.

The proposed bill being discussed in the bicameral conference committee provides that in addition to performance bond by recruiter, each worker shall be covered by compulsory insurance policy at no cost to worker; $15,000 survivor’s benefit for accidental death; $10,000 for natural death; $7,500 for permanent total disability; repatriation cost in case of job termination or death; $100 a month in subsistence allowance benefit for six months for migrant worker involved in a case or litigation for protection of his or her rights in receiving country.

The bill also provides that claims resulting from employer’s liability to worker shall have an insurance coverage amounting to three months for every year of service.

In case of workers recruited through government-to-government mechanisms, the Philippine Overseas Employment
Administration shall provide a guarantee fund for monetary claims out of breach of contract.

Rehires and direct hires may get insurance coverage from employers or pay these themselves.

Hundreds protest plans to deport migrant workers, kids

By Dana Weiler-Pollak (Haaretz)found at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1120969.html

Hundreds of people turned out yesterday in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv to protest the cabinet's decision to deport 1,200 children of foreign workers and their parents next summer.

Yesterday morning social welfare organizations held a vigil in front of the Knesset as the legislators inside discussed the deportations. Another vigil was held at the same time across from the Interior Ministry building in Tel Aviv.

In the afternoon, several hundred demonstrators, marched along Ben Zion Boulevard in the center of Tel Aviv. Protesters called on cabinet ministers to "do what is moral, true and right" and grant the children legal status.

"As long as deportation is on the agenda, no matter the date, we'll keep on working," said Rotem Ilan of the Israeli Children organization, which organized the protests. "Those kids can't be living on hold, in permanent anxiety. Until the day arrives on which those 1,200 children, who are 100-percent Israelis, get a legal status, we won't stop."

Deeply engaged in the struggle is Noa Maiman, whose father is business tycoon Yossi Maiman. "Our connection to this is personal: It began when my grandmother, who is 95 and a Holocaust survivor, made us promise that we would take care of her "granddaughter" Pirita - her Peruvian caretaker's little girl," Maiman said.

"My grandmother is terrified about it and we all feared for our friends when the Oz deportation unit took to the streets," Maiman said, referring to the Oz task force created by the National Immigration Authority to locate and detain foreigners working in Israel without valid work permits.

"As the August deportation deadline drew near we prepared about 75 hiding places for children," Maiman continued. "I felt personally responsible. My grandmother was saved from the Holocaust by a Polish woman who hid her for two and a half years. I'm not making a comparison here, but there's this ongoing womanly grace happening here, and perhaps my grandmother is also trying, in her way, to pay the world back in kindness."

MKs and ministers yesterday also voiced their opposition to the plan. Education Minister Gideon Saar (Likud), said that "the interim decision of the prime minister must be extended until the of the year, and in the meantime a general policy must be fleshed out to avoid such situations in the future."

Saar's predecessor, MK Yuli Tamir (Labor), invited the leaders of the protesting organizations to the Knesset, and requested time for the issue at the session. "The cabinet's decision to leave those children just hanging in mid-air appears to me to be cruel and unseemly," she said. MK Haim Oron (Meretz) said the "brutal and shameful decision to deport children" shows that Interior Minister Eli Yishai of Shas and his colleagues "have forgotten what it is to be Jewish."

The Minister of Sports and Culture, Limor Livnat (Likud), said that if the decision to deport the children goes forward, she would formally protest it in the cabinet. "It's inconceivable that those kids, who know no other country but Israel, will spend their days terrified, horrified and hiding from immigration police," she said.