Migrant labor recruitment processes should promote the welfare of workers and respect their fundamental human rights, ILO Jakarta Program Officer Irham Ali Saifuddin said.
"This is a part of what has been advocated by the ILO as the only United Nations organization with the mandate for setting international labor standards," he said in the organizations Jakarta Office on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Executive Director of Migrant CARE Indonesia Anis Hidayah said that one of the code of ethics that should be promoted is zero recruitment fees.
"All along, the broadest dimension when it comes to migration is the business. It needs to be minimized in order to prevent anyone from turning the labor migration sector into business opportunities. These fees should be imposed on the employers instead," she said in Jakarta on Wednesday.
Ever since Indonesia started regulating migration, she continued, issues concerning fees had come to the center stage.
"Which is why, in 1977, a Minister Regulation about migration was released and issues around fees were the first ones that were brought up," she noted.
Additionally, workers should be provided complete and fair information on the destination country of work, and a detailed description of the job.
"There needs to be fair information about the working conditions. All this time, recruiters do not provide fair information about destination countries. They only include promising aspects of the job, leaving out the risks and threats they may face when they migrate," she reiterated.
Labor Affairs Expert A Y Bonasahat said in Jakarta on Wednesday that international agencies had been promoting the provision regarding complete information for quite some time now.
"It was included in the UN Convention in 1990 and has also been ratified by Indonesia. There are clauses in the convention that touched on the issue of the right of migrant labor to receive complete information about the job, including income rate and destination country. It is being imposed by the convention on the country," he said.
Anyone who wishes to work as a migrant laborer should receive adequate protection, he concluded.(WDY)
