End extortion of migrant workers Nur Aisyah Kotaromalos  ;  The writer is researching the Bugis ethnic diaspora in Malaysia for her doctoral thesis at the Department of Sociology, National University of Singapore, on scholarship from the Educational Fund Management Institution (LPDP)

JAKARTA POST, 27 Desember 2014

                                                

                                                                                                                       

President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, together with Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi and Manpower Minister Muhammad Hanif Dhakiri, promised to revoke the requirement for a Foreign Employment Identity Card (KTKLN) during a recent teleconference with migrant workers. There were about 3 million women working overseas as domestic workers, mainly in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan according to the International Organization for Migration in 2010. The KTKLN card, which was officially launched in 2007, is a smart card that provides data on the migrant worker’s identity, passport number, the identity of the private labor supply company (PPTKIS) assigning them, insurance, training certificate, training competency certificate, type of job, country of placement, expiry period, place of issue and place of embarkation/debarkation. The card’s objective was to protect migrant workers — but it has become a source of illegal levies and discrimination, ironically by Indonesian immigration and airport officials. Migrant workers are trans-nationally mobile subjects, but in reality their travel is immobile. Failing to show the KTKLN card at the airport, migrant workers will be banned from flying or will be subject to high costs to obtain the card. The KTLN regulation remains problematic for migrant workers. As the country dispatching the second largest number of migrant workers in the region, after the Philippines, Indonesia exemplifies a mobility regime where the state has a paradigm of suspicion that produces regulations and policies in which people are classified based on their perceived threat and risk, as described by the researcher Sanneke Kloppenburg. Thus, not all people have the same equality to move freely and may be restricted as to how, when and where they can move about. The KTKLN reflects the reality of female domestic workers’ movement as “confined mobility”, as Kloppenburg writes. These female migrant workers are discriminated against compared to male migrant workers and regular travelers. The KTKLN card is required by rule for both male and female migrant workers, but in practice, immigration officials usually only pay attention to female travelers.  A study by Kloppenburg and Peter Peters in 2012 revealed that male Indonesian migrant workers were more difficult to recognize and resembled regular passengers a lot more than female migrant workers. Women in domestic service in the Asia Pacific were harder to identify than those coming from the Middle East, as women arriving from the Middle East would likely look stressed and tired. Therefore, to easily distinguish migrant workers from regular travelers, the government issued a low-cost passport with 24 pages instead of 48. This, however, boomeranged on the migrants as they could then be easily recognized and subjected to extortion. In reality, there has been a gradual increase in “independent” migrant workers employed in domestic service. This means that they are employed overseas without using recruitment agents in Indonesia to save on recruitment fees. Agents usually bind migrants through debt incurred through sponsored training, documents and air travel. As a consequence, migrants workers are trapped in debt bondage, “where personal services are used as security for a debt, but where the services are not limited to or directly applied to the liquidation of the debt”, as described by the International Labor Organization. Yet, as migrants find out how to channel themselves into the foreign job market through experience or that of their network, they find it more efficient not to use the services of private Indonesian employment agencies. In Singapore, for instance, many migrant workers arrive independently and make direct contact with Singaporean recruitment agents. These agents help them to find employers and process all the relevant legal procedures so they are able to work legally. Based on their accounts, if migrant workers only deal with Singaporean agents, they pay one to two months’ salary; if they use both Indonesian and Singaporean recruitment agents, their salaries will be cut for up to nine months to pay back all the fees. Further, the Singapore government provides an alternative option, where employers are allowed to personally hire a female domestic worker, although it is more convenient to use a Singaporean employment agent as they help handle all the paperwork and formalities. Unfortunately, these migrant workers will be classified as illegal recruits under Indonesian law. Under a 2007 regulation issued by the Manpower Ministry, an independent migrant worker can only be one working in the formal sector. The KTKLN can only be processed through PPTKIS, while workers wish to avoid their services to save the placement fees. Therefore, they cannot get a KTKLN card even though they have a valid working visa, in the case of Singapore. The state justifies its restrictions and controls saying they prevent human trafficking and human smuggling, thus engage the private manpower supply companies to issue the KTLN card. But the regulations ignore the reality of extortion, especially of female domestic workers, through excessive fees. The reality also reflects discrimination between men and women and the formal and non-formal sectors. Allowing such discrimination means the state chooses not to be responsible for protecting its citizens. Any replacement of the card, such as the barcode suggested by the manpower minister, would likely create the same problem as long as the authorities still perceive these “foreign revenue heroes” as second-class citizens, as well as modern milking machines, silently legitimized through regulation. The state, through the Indonesian embassies, should start to document the mobility of Indonesian migrant workers regardless of gender and their type of employment as a start to better protect them. ●