Housemaids To Become Formal Workers

Jakarta (Antara Bali) - The government will in stage change the status of Indonesian housemaids in Singapore into four formal categories where domestic helpers will work either as a house keeper, cook, baby sitter or as caregiver, a minister said.

"We will change it in stages. Indonesian migrant workers who work as housemaids in Singapore will later be given a clear and formal status," Manpower and Transmigration Minister Muhaimin Iskandar said here on Sunday.

He said that the Indonesian government would make its migrant workers who worked as housemaids in Singapore as a pilot project for its zero domestic worker roadmap program.

The minister made the remarks following his working visit to Singapore. As a consequence of the project, the Indonesian migrant workers in Singapore must get a training program so that they would have the skills they needed.

He said that the step would be taken as preparations for the implementation of the country's zero domestic worker roadmap in 2017.

At present, the number of Indonesian citizens staying in Singapore reached 197,913, of whom 104,437 are workers in the informal sector, 19,451 sailors, 11,521 in the service sector, 24,529 students, 9,451 professionals and 28,838 others (housewives and senior citizens).

Muhaimin Iskandar said last month that the government had planned to stop sending Indonesian housemaids abroad by 2017. "However, the moratorium will be implemented in stages, because the demand for housemaid services abroad is still strong," he said. (*/T007)