Indonesia’s Journey Towards Adequate Protection for Migrant Labours Julienna Hartono Faculty of Law Airlangga University A. INTRODUCTION It is undebateable that the fast growing pace of economic globalization has brought a big impact on workers. One of the significant impact is the increasing number of migrant workers. United Nations Statistic Division defines migrant workers as: “Foreigners admitted by the receiving State for the specific purpose of exercising an economic activity remunerated from within the receiving country. Their length of stay is usually restricted as is the type of employment they can hold. Their dependents, if admitted, are also included in this category.”1 While Law No 18/2017 about Protection for Indonesian Migrant Workers, defines migrant workers as: “Every Indonesian citizens which will, are, or have done jobs and have accepted wage outside Republic of Indonesia teritorial.”2 Indonesian migrant workers are divided into two categories, formal and informal migrant workers. Formal migrant workers are people who works in companies with clear working agreement, while informal workers are people who works for individual. For this category we are more familiar with the terms “migrant labour”. Actually there’s no difference between workers and labours in law terms, but based on people’s presumption, workers refers to job with specific skills with high wage, while labour refers to job that requires no specific skills with lower wage (writer is using term “labour”). In this essay, we’re focusing on migrant labour, because it is an common issue where Indonesian migrant labours are not given protection and fulfillment of their rights while working overseas, yet untill now there is no adequate law or regulations to solve those issues. Based on data 1 Migration Data Portal, “Labour Migration”, www.migrationdataportal.org, 17 October 2019, h.1, visited on 3 November 2019. 2
Law No. 18/2017 about Protection for Indonesian Migrant Workers (Additional Statue Book of Republic of Indonesia No. 6141), Ps. 1.