The agreement to improve the protection of the Indonesian workers was reached on Friday in Taiwan, Arifin Purba, director for placement affairs of the National Agency for Placement and Protection of Indonesia Workers Overseas (BNP2TKI), said in an SMS message from Taiwan on Saturday.
Together with the Indonesian Economic and Trade Office (KDEI), Head of BNP2TKI Jumhur Hidayat, who represented the Indonesian government, and Taiwan Economic Trade Office (TETO) Head Andrew Hsie on behalf of the Taiwanese government, reached the agreement on their annual meeting to discuss the placement and protection of Indonesian workers in Taiwan on Friday.
Head of KDEI Harmen Sembiring also attended the meeting.
So far Indonesia is the biggest migrant worker supplier to Taiwan. According to data from the KDEI, there are 161,000 Indonesian workers of the total of 380,000 foreign workers in Taiwan. This is followed by Vietnam with 120,000 workers, the Philippines with 80,000 workers and Thailand with 50,000-60,000 workers.
Most Indonesian workers in Taiwan work as housemaids and caretakers for elderly people. This situation is natural considering that Taiwanese have quite a high life expectancy, namely about 90 percent from its total citizens of 27 million people. Other Indonesians worked on ships, in manufacturing industries and construction projects.
Indonesians working in households got paid Rp4.5 million per month on average with extra money for overtime. Meanwhile, ship crew members got Rp5 million per month while workers in manufacturing industries and construction projects got Rp5.5-6 million per month.(*)
Editor: Aditia Maruli Radja
Copyright © ANTARA 2011
