TEMPO.CO, Yogyakarta - Migrant workers union in Wonosobo, Central Java, revealed that the practice of migrant workers`(TKI) illegal recruitment in Indonesia`s rural regions has continued to thrive. It is made worse by the government’s lack of sufficient efforts to monitor these practices.

Central Java is known as the province in Indonesia that supplies the largest number of global migrant workers. Maizidah Salas, Chairman of the Wonosobo Migrant Workers Union found that the middlemen or brokers would target economically poor villages by offering a loan for the recruitment administration fees.

Maizidah herself once worked as a migrant worker throughout 2001-2007 and fell victim to a case of human trafficking. The Coordinator of Central Java’s migrant worker's network was exploited by her former employer by forcing her to work without any day-off or pay.

She says that brokers usually work together with the private TKI agencies, PPTKIS. Other than providing a loan to the TKI candidate, the broker also offers allowances up to Rp3 million each. The brokers are usually the neighbors of the recruited migrant workers. “Such practice is very common and the government doesn’t prevent it,” she said.

After the workers are sent to their country of destination, their wages will get cut by the brokers as the result of the allowances they received at the beginning of their deal. The migrant workers usually get their wages cut for five to six months even though many countries have their own wage-cut policies, such as Singapore that regulates its migrant workers' wage cut to a maximum of one month.

Maizidah revealed that Wonosobo has at least eight PPTKIS equipped with shelters and training centers. The region originally had 48 PPTKIS before the government stepped-in by enforcing an official verification process.

In fact, according to Maizidah, the government lacks in monitoring migrant workers’ protection aspect since migrant labors in rural areas mostly hand over the handling of documents directly to the brokers. The TKI mostly do not understand how to handle documents according to the official procedure. “Information regarding migrations are controlled by the PPTKIS,” said Maizidah.

SHINTA MAHARANI