Main Problem Is Legal Protection
Apart from the problem migrant workers face in the country of placement, the public also attributed the quandary to the government’s weak legal protection of migrant workers’ process of recruitment and distribution.
Supriani (second from right) with family members visits the grave of his daughter-in-law Julia Ningsih (19), at the Dasan Borok Village Public Cemetery, Suralaga District, East Lombok Regency, West Nusa Tenggara, Friday (21/1/2022). Julia Ningsih, who left for Malaysia with Junaidi, her husband, was one of the victims who died in a non-procedural Indonesian Migrant Worker ship accident in the waters of Johor, Malaysia, in mid-December 2021.
The nagging issues related to the protection of Indonesian migrant workers continue to linger, with the government being urged to take firm action to protect migrant workers from the time prior to leaving Indonesia, working in the country of placement to the completion of their work and returning home.
Public views about the problems overshadowing Indonesian migrant workers are reflected in the results of a poll conducted by Kompas on 12-14 Jan. 2022. Many respondents (37.2 percent) believed that the main problem for migrant workers was the lack of legal protection in the country of placement.