TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - As many as fifty undocumented Indonesian migrant workers in Jordan have returned home. The Indonesian embassy in Amman took advantage of the Jordanian Government's fourth amnesty period for troubled foreign workers, a state official said.

The workers were originally from Banten, West Java, Central Java, West Nusa Tenggara, and Lampung. "They returned to the home country on Friday," Head of the Manpower Ministry's Migrant Worker Protection Yuli Adiratna said in a statement on Saturday, May 18.

"The government took advantage of the Jordanian Government's amnesty policy to accelerate the repatriation of our troubled workers. Around 50 percent of our citizens are illegal, and they can be assisted by our embassy," he said.

The Indonesian workers who returned home are those who had finished their working contracts and stay permits, but were illegally working in Jordan, he said.

The majority of these workers who took advantage of this amnesty policy were those who were undocumented. In this group, three of the workers detained at An-Nadara Detention House were also repatriated, he added.

"This repatriation is an act of protecting our migrant workers," Adiratna said.

Commenting on the repatriation of these 50 workers, Indonesian Ambassador to Jordan Andy Rachmianto said the Jordanian Government's amnesty policy should be used because it is not available every year.

"We have set a target of helping repatriate 50 percent of Indonesians holding undocumented status," he said, adding that the amnesty policy is valid from December 12, 2018, to June 12, 2019.

Suseno, Attache for Manpower Affairs at the Indonesian Embassy in Amman, said almost all Indonesian nationals taking advantage of this amnesty policy were migrant workers and were all women who had stayed in Jordan for more than 10 years.

For those who fail to take advantage of this migrant policy, they could be fined Rp29,500 per day by the Jordanian Government, dating back to the expiration of their legal stay permits, he said.

ANTARA