When Fitriyah saw her mother again, she was dead.
The autopsy stated that Sulastri had died from insect bites. But there was no explanation for the bruises covering the body when it was returned.
“For seven years, I had no idea what had happened and why she didn’t write. Now, at least, I can understand her silence”, she whispers.
A 30-year-old divorcee with two children and a mother to support, Sulastri was like so many of the 270,000 Indonesian women who leave their families each year to work overseas. The dark volcanic soil of her village in East Java was rich and fertile, but the small plot of land the family farmed and the corn they sold were barely enough to feed them, let alone build a future for the children. Like so many, Sulastri was seduced by the prospect of an ‘easy’ job as a domestic worker in Riyadh, earning $165 a month.
Atikah, from the village of Kalimekar in West Java, was just 14 when she left for Riyadh. For three years she worked without a single day’s rest, from dawn until late at night, keeping house for a family of four. She was allowed to call home, but she wasn’t allowed to leave the house and she earned little more than $30 a month.
“They were nice to me”, she said “They always paid my salary on time and gave me enough to eat.”
Others in neighbouring villages fared much worse. Twelve women returned with unwanted pregnancies, seven with children already and one had had an abortion - all raped by their male employers. Others never made it home, dying from physical abuse or taking their own lives, friendless and far from their loved ones.
People have been moving abroad to work, study, marry or escape persecution for centuries. But today the scale of economic migration is massive, and for many countries it is no longer just a passing response to temporary labour shortages and surpluses, it is a way of life.
The International Labour Organisation (ILO) estimates that there are 80-97 million migrant workers and their family members worldwide, about 22 million of them in Asia alone. The real number is much higher as these figures exclude the hidden, but huge, army of undocumented migrants and victims of trafficking.
Among the reasons for this migrant explosion is the rapid growth of the labour pool in developing countries. This has coincided with the rich world’s demand for lower-cost goods and services and its labour shortage due to falling birth rates and greying populations.
In many ways, economic migration is a win-win. Money sent home by migrants from abroad contributes significantly to their country’s economy, accounting for up to 25 percent of Nepal’s gross domestic product and 10 percent for Sri Lanka and the Philippines.
And yet, migrant workers often suffer gross human rights violations while abroad, on their return and even before they leave their villages.
Many Indonesians working abroad as maids come from rural villages and have little education, leaving them especially vulnerable to exploitation.
In Sulastri’s village, employment agencies use freelance brokers to go door-to-door looking for recruits – and a handsome fee. “They come regularly and know which houses to go to with young women of the right age,” says Atikah.
Young women and their families are easily dazzled by the tales of riches to be earned from a two-year stint in the Middle East, Hong Kong or Singapore, but no one spells out for them the conditions of employment and their rights in receiving countries. Only later, when employers cut their salary, does it become clear that the broker’s fee does not always cover the cost of a medical, training, travel and their visa.
Yohana was promised $330 a month in Taiwan. For the first six months, however, she received just $132; for the next six, $275 and finally, after a year, the promised $330.
“I had already paid the broker $275 back in the village. Why did I need to pay more?” says Yohana, who had two stints abroad and now lives back in Java with her husband and four children.
The women are held for weeks, sometimes months, in “training camps” awaiting placement. The conditions are cramped, with basic wash facilities, and sometimes nothing more than wooden planks for beds. Once overseas, they are even more vulnerable as the doors of a family home close behind them, isolating them from other workers and fellow Indonesians.
The harrowing tales of abuse have galvanized Indonesian workers at home and abroad to take action for themselves.
In Hong Kong, Eni Yuniarti, works three days a week for the Indonesian Migrant Workers Union and three days as a maid. She helps run a hotline and counseling service for workers with problems, and campaigns for an end to the territory’s discriminatory laws.
“My friend introduced me and every Sunday we would go to the union building”, said Eni, a slim, shy 26-year old from Ponorogo in East Java who first joined the union to take an English course. “When my employer found out, she was very angry and sacked me.”
Eni spoke for all Indonesian migrant workers when, in August this year, she raised these issues with the Committee of the U.N. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in New York. The Committee meets every four years to hear reports from signatory governments about their progress in protecting women’s rights.
Following that meeting, the Committee urged the Hong Kong government to scrap a rule obliging workers to leave within two weeks ending their contract and to strengthen control of employment agencies.
At a regional level, in Singapore, a local research and advocacy society called Transient Workers Count Too (TWC2) has been working with Indonesian non-governmental organisations and a group of Indonesian workers, business people and students who now form the Indonesian Family Network.
The Network is a self-help support group mainly focused on counseling, but also trying to raise workers’ self esteem through awareness of the contribution they make to the economies of Indonesia and Singapore.
There are an estimated 60-70,000 Indonesian domestic workers in Singapore and, according to Noorashikin of TWC2, most of them are completely unaware of their rights, or the rules and regulations they need to follow. “Since most are employed without a day off, this adds to their isolation”, she says. The Network is helping by organising outreach, training and social activities.
Back in the villages of Java, the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) is helping migrant workers and others in the community to provide information and training to those planning to migrate and to help solve problems once they return.
In Balearjo, the villagers have formed an organization called the PJP, or Daughters of Jinggo, the ancestral founder of the village. The PJP has put up large notice boards at the main crossroads listing the criteria for working abroad, giving names of legal recruitment agents and contact details for Indonesian embassies in destination countries.
In a tiny, dimly lit room at the back of one village house, the community radio set up in 1998 now adds its voice on migrants’ issues and directs callers with problems to the PJP. Hidden amongst squawking chickens in the backyard, a brand new radio tower broadcasts to villages up to 35 km (22 miles) away.
PJP Chairwoman Mutmainah regularly opens her home for informal gatherings, open to all with questions or stories to tell. An adjoining whitewashed room, once her hair salon, has been transformed into the PJP’s office where visitors can call for information.
“Our main difficulty is the slow response of government. And so we’ve learnt that the best way to act is to work together”, she said.
The Indonesian government has enacted legislation which is supposed to protect its nationals working overseas. However, most migrant organisations complain that it actually legitimises the exploitative practices they were hoping to see abolished.
Sulastri has returned home at last. With help from the Indonesian Migrant Workers Union in Jakarta and eleven months of PJP persistence, her bruised body was returned to her family, together with $14,097 - seven year’s unpaid wages.
Fitriyah has been able to pay for a proper burial, rent some land to farm and save a little for the future. But most returnee migrants spend their hard-earned savings on a house and, before long, need to return abroad again.
Mutmainah has a dream she hopes the PJP can help realise: returning workers will use their money to develop small businesses in the village; the economy will thrive, and the young women of Balearjo will no longer have to leave home in the risky search for a pot of gold.
Sarah Chalmers is a freelance writer based in Singapore. She is a member of Transient Workers Count Too and this article was commissioned by UNIFEM East and South-East Asia..
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