"The task force has operated since Friday and they are searching the streets from Riyadh to Makkah," Indonesian Ambassador for Saudi Arabia Gatot Abdullah Mansyur said.
Jeddah (ANTARA News) - Indonesian Ambassador for Saudi Arabia Gatot Abdullah Mansyur said the embassy has sent a task force to learn the facts about 16 missing women migrant workers from Indonesia.

"The task force has operated since Friday and they are searching the streets from Riyadh to Makkah," Mansyur said here on Friday evening.

He added that local media in Saudi Arabia reported that at least 16 women migrant workers, who also brought a child to Saudi Arabia, are to be banished by their employers.

Mansyur added the task force will document their problems and Saudi Arabia police are expected to notify the RI Embassy, based upon rules set down by the Vienna Convention.

Recent information received by the Indonesian Embassy is that the Indonesian workers are believed to be located 400 kilometers from Riyadh and 600 kilometers from Makkah.

"We believe that their employers brought them from Riyadh to Makkah as they performed the Hajj. However, officers arrested them, since the Saudi Arabian government limited the number of current Hajj participants," the Ambassador said.

Mansyur said the embassy has not learned whether the Indonesian workers hold legal document or are the victims of human trafficking.

He said all migrant workers who arrive in Saudi Arabia are legal, but there are other workers who abandon their employers and join illegal work networks.

Other benefits they receive from illegal work are protection from their employers.

"They can change their employers if they do not fit and also have one day a week off," Mansyur said.

The ambassador noted that every year employers return at least 2,000 Indonesian passports to the Embassy in Riyadh from maids who left their employers.

Earlier, the Indonesian Migrant Workers Union of West Java reported on 16 female workers from Indonesia who left their employers in Saudi Arabia.(*)

Editor: Heru Purwanto
Copyright © ANTARA 2013