TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Thousands of Indonesian women who were trafficked to Hong Kong are often faced with risk of a slavery-like condition as they carry out their jobs as domestic workers while both country governments' have failed to protect them from widespread abuse and exploitation, said Amnesty International.
A new report entitled "Exploited for Profit, Failed by Governments", exposes how Indonesian recruitment agencies and placement agents in Hong Kong traffic Indonesian women for exploitation and forced labor. The form of abuses the migrant workers suffered include restrictions on freedom of movement, physical and sexual violence, food deprivation, and excessive and exploitative hours.
"From the moment the women are tricked into signing up for work in Hong Kong, they are trapped in a circle of exploitation with cases that amount to modern-day slavery," said Norma Kang Muico, Asia-Pacific Migrant Rights Researcher at Amnesty International.
The findings were based on in-depth interviews with 97 Indonesian migrant workers and supported by a survey of nearly 1,000 women by the Indonesian Migrant Workers Union.
There are more than 300,000 migrant domestic workers in Hong Kong, with about half of the number are Indonesians and nearly all of them are women.
One of the migrant workers told Amnesty International how she was beaten by her employer.
"He kicked me from behind and dragged me by my clothes to my room. After locking the door, he smacked and punched me. He pushed me to the ground and kicked me some more. I was black and blue all over – my face, arms and legs. My mouth and forehead were bleeding," she said.
The report also highlights systemic failures in both the Hong Kong and Indonesian governments to protect migrant domestic workers from exploitation. Some of the authorities' actions even put women at greater risk of abuse.
"It is inexcusable that the Hong Kong and Indonesian governments turn a blind eye to the trafficking of thousands of vulnerable women for forced labour. The authorities may point to a raft of national laws that supposedly protect these women but such laws are rarely enforced," said Muico.
In Indonesia, prospective migrant domestic workers are compelled to go through government-licensed recruitment agencies including for pre-departure training.
These agencies, and the brokers that act for them, routinely deceive women about salaries and fees, confiscate identity documents and other property as collateral, and charge fees in excess of those permitted by law. Full fees are imposed from the outset of training, trapping the women with crippling debt should they withdraw.
Recruitment agencies in Indonesia and placement agents in Hong Kong even conspire in order to circumvent the legal limits of charges they can impose to migrant workers. Amnesty International found most women are charged way above the legal limits.
Agencies circumvent the law by collecting the excessive payments via a variety of third party schemes, including finance companies.
"We need to see current laws enforced and people face justice for the exploitation. Only then will we start to see an end to forced labour from Indonesia to Hong Kong," said Muico. "Both the Indonesian and Hong Kong governments need to show genuine commitment to tackling the human and labour rights violations exposed in this report."
Amnesty International is calling on both governments to swiftly ratify and implement the International Labour Organization's Domestic Workers Convention.
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