Govt has no right to ban women from working abroad

The ILO Convention on Migrant Workers rules that anybody has the right to work everywhere in the world, Himsataki Deputy Chairman for Ethics Rusdi Basalamah said.

Jakarta (Antara News) - The government has no right to ban Indonesian women from working abroad but rather it must protect them against any work risk wherever they are employed, according to the Indonesian Migrant Workers Placement Agencies Association (Himsataki).

The ILO Convention on Migrant Workers rules that anybody has the right to work everywhere in the world, Himsataki Deputy Chairman for Ethics Rusdi Basalamah said here on Monday.

"On the other hand, the Manpower and Transmigration Ministry must provide maximum protection to every citizen employed abroad," he said.

The government should not ban women from seeking overseas employment merely because of its incapability to protect them maximally, he said.

"The ban is a discriminatory act and violates human rights," he said.

Separately, on Monday, Executive Director of Migrant Care Anis Hidayah said banning women from working abroad is unconstitutional. "Every citizen has the right to get a proper job," he said.

It is for the government to guarantee the right so that they will get proper jobs abroad, he said.

Earlier, Manpower and Transmigration Minister Muhaimin Iskandar said the government prohibits female Indonesians to work in the informal sector in a number of Middle Eastern countries, namely Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and Kuwait to which Indonesia is applying a moratorium on the dispatch of female migrant workers.

"I should like to affirm a ban on the dispatch of female Indonesian migrant workers to countries subjected to the moratorium. The ban remains in place to protect our female migrant workers abroad," he said in a press statement released on Monday.

The moratorium will continue to take effect until the recipient countries can guarantee legal protection and basic rights of Indonesian migrant workers, he said.

He said the moratorium is aimed at improving the placement of Indonesian migrant workers abroad. "But the problem is that there has been no concrete effort on the part of the government to do so," he said.(*)

Editor: Heru Purwanto
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