Jakarta. Two Indonesian migrant workers jailed in Saudi Arabia for the death of a Sri Lankan worker but eventually freed on lesser charges have recounted their ordeal as one underpinned by an inherent lack of respect and dignity for foreign menial laborers in the kingdom.
“I’m blessed to be able to return home soon,” Hariyanto, from Bantul, Yogyakarta, said at a press conference at the Foreign Ministry office in Jakarta on Monday, a day after arriving back in the country with compatriot Anang Waluyo Yanto from Lumajang, East Java.
“There’s no more fear inside of me,” he added. “There are so many things that I’ve learned during those years in jail.”
Hariyanto and Anang left for Saudi Arabia in 2007, where they worked as a driver and a decorator, respectively. After three years, however, they quit because of unpaid salaries.
“With our passports still held by our employers, we sought shelter and protection,” Anang said.
Instead, they ended up slumming it beneath the infamous Kandara bridge in Jeddah, where hundreds of foreign workers end up after leaving or losing their jobs and being unable to go home.
Hariyanto said their troubles got even worse when a massive brawl broke out late one night between hundreds of Indonesians, on one side, and Sri Lankans, Bangladeshis and Filipinos on the other, over a perceived insult by a Sri Lankan man against Indonesian women.
“As an Indonesian, I was so offended because Indonesian women aren’t respected and treated well there, as if anyone can do as they please with them,” Hariyanto says.
In the melee, the Sri Lankan man who had started it all died.
“After around 10 minutes, the police suddenly came and everyone ran away. But I was caught by the police, as was Anang and four Sri Lankans and one guy from the Philippines,” Hariyanto said.
He added that the others accused him and Anang for the man’s death, although he denied strenuously that he had even hit him, much less killed him.
“Even though we were investigated, no evidence was found because we didn’t kill the guy,” he said. “So there was no proof at all.”
That didn’t spare Hariyanto and Anang from being thrown in jail, accused of being drunk and disorderly.
Inside, they met another Indonesian, who gave them the number of an official at the Indonesian Consulate in Jeddah, and they contacted him for help.
The consulate pulled through, hiring a local lawyer to represent the two men when their case went to court.
“We were helped by the consulate, which showed its commitment by providing legal assistance throughout the trial,” Anang said.
In September 2013, the court finally handed down its verdict: a two-year sentence and 200 lashes for each of the men, for being drunk, getting into a fight, and not having a passport.
Upon appeal, the number of lashes was reduced to 50, which they were duly subjected to and subsequently released, having already spent three years behind bars.
After their release, the consulate arranged for them to return home.
Tatang Budie Utama Razak, the Foreign Ministry’s director for protection of citizens overseas, says Hariyanto and Anang’s case is a common one for the millions of migrant workers in low-paying menial jobs, who often work under abusive conditions, with no clear understanding of their rights.
“Many of these blue-collar workers work in vulnerable sectors. They work in places without sufficient control and monitoring. And the laws in the Middle East and some part of Asia have given the monitoring of such sectors over to the private sector,” he said, adding that ideally government oversight was preferred.
Hariyanto said the experience had scarred him, in particular the general attitude of the Saudis toward migrant workers.
“If I were given the chance to work overseas again, I would never choose to be placed in the Middle East,” he said.
“The people there are rude. Even though as workers we don’t do anything wrong, the employers always find a way to punish us if they dislike us.”
His advice to anyone thinking of working in Saudi Arabia is to reconsider their decision and, if they still insist on going, to be very careful about how they conduct themselves there.
Tatang said the Foreign Ministry, through the embassy in Riyadh and consulate in Jeddah, continued to provide legal assistance to Indonesian workers in trouble in the kingdom. The ministry has also successfully negotiated the commuting of the death sentence for 187 Indonesians there, 48 of whom were subsequently freed after the government paid a diyat , or blood money, to the families of their victims.
Indonesia has since 2011 enforced a moratorium on the sending of migrant workers to Saudi Arabia, following the beheading of an Indonesian domestic worker there who had been convicted of murder.
The government, however, has in recent months indicated it may end the moratorium. In March the president named Gatot Abdullah Mansyur, a former ambassador to the kingdom, the head of the National Agency for the Placement and Protection of Indonesian Workers, or BNP2TKI.
A month earlier, the Indonesian and Saudi manpower ministers signed a memorandum of understanding that both sides hailed as “a historic milestone in cooperation … on the placement and protection of Indonesian domestic workers in Saudi Arabia.”
Source:
Jakarta Globe, June 10, 201
Related article:
- Indonesia vs Saudi Arabia: The maid issue, March 31, 2013.
The treatment of migrant workers in Saudi Arabia especially domestic workers or maids has been a long standing issue. More migrant workers are executed in Saudi Arabia than in any other country. According to human rights groups, more than 45 Indonesian women are on death row...
NB: For more articles on the 'maid issue' in Saudi Arabia and Gulf countries, type "maid" in the search engine ('Search this Blog') at the top of the right side bar of this page.
