A moratorium on Indonesian women traveling to work in the Middle East is creating new avenues for exploitation.
The News Lens
By: Edward White
Indonesia’s moratorium on women traveling to work as domestic maids in the Middle East has failed to
Photo Credit：AP/ 達志影像
stem the flow of women who oftentimes end up in shocking conditions.
Exploitative employers, recruitment agencies and brokers are using new methods to circumvent the law, which has been in place since 2015, a frontline non-government organization (NGO) worker told The News Lens International.
The moratorium was established amid outcry at the execution of two Indonesian women in Saudi Arabia and followed an earlier pledge from Indonesian President Joko Widodo.
Theresia Iswarini is a Jakarta-based project manager with Hivos, a Dutch NGO, which, among a range of development programs, works to help maids in the Middle East. Iswarini says that while the moratorium does not prohibit women returning to jobs, of the more than 2,000 women the NGO surveyed leaving Jakarta to work in the Middle East since the new law came into force, about 40 percent were going for the first time. [FULL STORY]