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| Migrant workers who arrived back from Malaysia and Singapore wait for COVID-19 screening in Surabaya on Apr 28, 2021, before being quarantined. (File photo by=Juni Kriswanto / AFP) |
[아시아뉴스통신=레악카나 기자] JAKARTA: Indonesian President Joko Widodo and Malaysian Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob witnessed on Friday (Apr 1) the signing of an agreement to improve protection for domestic migrant workers following a meeting between the leaders in Jakarta, Reuters reported.
The memorandum of understanding between the Southeast Asian neighbors follows concerns about migrant worker safety after several incidents involving the abuse of Indonesian domestic workers in Malaysian households. "This MoU will ensure that every process and protection mechanism ... will be done comprehensively by all relevant parties, in accordance with the laws of the two countries," the Malaysian leader said after the agreement was signed at the state palace. The MoU aims to put in place a system designed to match Indonesian domestic workers with suitable employers, part of initiatives that also include applications designed to strengthen wage protection and complaint mechanisms.
Malaysia's labor-starved palm oil industry has for months awaited the signing of a domestic worker agreement, which is expected to pave the way for the hiring of plantation workers. With hundreds of thousands of Indonesians employed in Malaysia, many in the palm oil and construction sectors, President Widodo said he hoped the scope of the agreement could soon be expanded. According to the rights group Migrant CARE, between 100,000 and 200,000 Indonesians travel illegally to Malaysia each year for work, many of them recruited by trafficking gangs.
