Foreign Minister Supervises Recruitment Process To Protect Migrant Workers

JAKARTA - Foreign Minister Sugiono said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs together with the Ministry of Protection of Migrant Workers would increase monitoring of the recruitment process to protect against efforts to Criminalize Trafficking in Persons (TPPO) and unlawful efforts.

"This is what we are currently trying to solve this problem, it's everywhere too. We are working with the relevant ministries to assess all these processes. Starting from recruitment to there," said Foreign Minister Sugiono after a lunch at the residence of the Saudi Arabian Ambassador in Jakarta, reported by ANTARA, Wednesday, December 11.

The process upstream starts from recruitment, work goals, accountability of service providers, to the available employment opportunities, he said, really must be monitored properly so that unwanted incidents can be minimized.

This supervision includes to prevent the bad behavior of Indonesian citizens who will have a negative impact on Indonesia's image abroad. This refers to the arrest of an Indonesian citizen (WNI) at the end of last November on charges of attempted robbery and murder of two elderly Japanese citizens.

The 24-year-old, with the initials YAP, was arrested on November 27 because his actions left the two elderly aged 81 years and 78 years seriously injured and hospitalized.

YAP is an intern at a building raw material company in Chihama, Kakegawa, and has been in Japan for two years. YAP carried out a robbery for online gambling purposes.

"Yes, we will carry out monitoring, first inventory because I also (need location data) exactly where, where there are many cases. So later we will inventory it, we monitor it," said Sugiono.

Previously, the Minister for the Protection of Indonesian Migrant Workers, Abdul Kadir Karding, said that 70 percent of victims of the Trafficking in Persons (TPPO) were non-procedural migrant workers.

The majority of the victims are women and labor with low skills. This group is prone to exploitation, both physically, psychologically, and economically.

In order to overcome TIP for Indonesian migrant workers, Minister Karding plans to strengthen departure regulations using a certification system. In addition to strengthening the protection system for migrant workers through increasing public awareness about safe departure procedures.