Dorms for Indonesian migrant domestic workers?

Indonesia reviews policy on domestic workers
By Sujadi Siswo | Posted: 21 July 2011 ChannelNewsAsia.com

The Indonesian government is currently reviewing its policy on domestic workers overseas, a sector that brings in more than US$6 billion. It's looking to prevent them from living with their employers, instead housing them in dormitories.


An inter-ministerial team is working on the initiate aimed at protecting Indonesian domestic workers from potential abuse. More than three million Indonesian women work and live in foreign homes although there are more, if undocumented ones are taken into account.


Cases of them being abused have prompted the Indonesian government to consider prohibiting them from living with their employers. Jumhur Hidayat, head of Indonesia's National Migrant Workers Placement and Protection Agency, said: "We call it a live-out system.


"The sectors we are looking at are nannies, care-givers and domestic workers. They will work like those in the formal sector. This means they do not work for 24 hours under the same roof."


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