Struggling to Find Livelihoods in Other Countries

RUNIK SRI ASTUTI

A number of former migrant workers in Wuluhan Village, Wuluhan District, Jember Regency, make pastries for sale, Friday (11/3/2022).

During the pandemic, the lives of migrant workers have been full of uncertainty. Those who are on leave cannot return to their home towns because of travel restrictions and those whose contracts have expired cannot go home either because of limited flights. Some have choosen an illegal option in the midst of economic pressure.

A deep longing for her children prompted Inah, 40, to return to her hometown in Dukuh Dempok village, Wuluhan district, Jember regency, East Java, in early January 2022. She rejected the employer's offer to extend her contract for another year and to provide a salary increase.

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For migrant workers in Malaysia like Inah, traveling home during the Covid-19 pandemic is not easy. Even though their work contracts have expired, they cannot go home immediately because they have to wait for a repatriation flight facilitated by the Indonesian government.

“I was lucky I only waited for a few days. Many friends had waited for a long time before they could go home. During the waiting period, workers usually stay in shelters provided by a recruitment agent or the employer's house," Inah said in Jember on Saturday (12/3/2022).

After the quarantine ended and she received a negative Covid-19 test result, Inah left for Jember by a public bus.

Upon her arrival in Jakarta, Inah could not directly travel to her hometown, Jember. The woman who had worked as a domestic worker for two years had to undergo a Covid-19 screening procedure and conduct a 10-day quarantine. She chose to stay at the Jakarta Athletes Village, now an isolation center, because it was free. After the quarantine ended and she received a negative Covid-19 test result, Inah left for Jember by a public bus.

She said she did not have any plan to return to work in a neighboring country, even though the salary was quite tempting, which was Rp 4 million (US$275) per month. In addition to Inah’s family reasons, the government has temporarily stopped sending migrant workers to a number of countries, such as Malaysia.

KOMPAS/RUNIK SRI ASTUTI

Pekerja migran asal Jatim tiba di Bandara Juanda Surabaya, Sabtu (22/1/2022). Ini merupakan kedatangan perdana pelaku perjalanan luar negeri di Surabaya.

This situation has made the fate of Indonesian migrant workers uncertain. In addition to being the target of unlicensed recruitment agents, the prospective workers have to choose an illegal channel if they are to leave the

country, and they are prone to becoming victims of fraud under the guise of job offers.

It is difficult to meet the requirement to work overseas. For example, Sandiko, 22, a resident of Ambulu, who intended to work in South Korea, had to take a language course at a cost of Rp 4.5 million as part of the requirement to work in the country, according to his mother, Darwati, 44. However, by the end of 2020, whether he would work in South Korea remained uncertain.

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Sandiko then applied to work in Japan and took a language course. In addition, Sandiko also took a training course to hone skills that matched the employment opportunities in the destination country. Unfortunately, he never got the call for the job.

“Even if you have skills and master a foreign language, there is no guarantee that you will be able to work in the formal sector abroad. Recently, there was an offer to work in Australia with a payment (traveling cost and others) up to Rp 25 million. I doubted it because the recruitment agent claimed to be from Malaysia," said Darwati.

Bali

The Covid-19 pandemic has also posed challenges for prospective migrant workers in Bali. From 2017 to 2019, on average, every year, 4,820 migrant workers departed from Bali. In 2020, the number dropped sharply to only 800. As the pandemic has begun to subside lately, migrant workers from Bali have begun departing in greater numbers again. As of the end of December 2021, the number of active migrant workers from Bali had reached more than 5,400.

Although the requirements are more complicated, including having a negative Covid-19 certificate, proof of vaccination and a job acceptance letter from the company where they will work, the desire of many people to work overseas has not subsided.

"We received information that there were job vacancies in Turkey. Luckily, a number of friends had already left for Turkey," said Sri, a prospective migrant worker, at the local Indonesian Migrant Workers Protection Agency (BP2MI) office in South Denpasar, Bali, on Friday (11/3). "The salary is much higher than the previous place," said Sri who currently works at a spa in Bali.

On the other hand, prospective migrant workers also faced uncertainty about their departure due to travel restrictions, he added.

Bambang Teguh Karyanto, a project officer for Jember Migrant Care, acknowledged that the challenges faced by migrant workers during the Covid-19 pandemic were more diverse. On the one hand, many migrant workers whose contracts had expired, could not go home immediately because they had to wait for flights facilitated by the government, he said. On the other hand, prospective migrant workers also faced uncertainty about their departure due to travel restrictions, he added.

At the same time, recruitment brokers continue to offer workers jobs overseas through unofficial channels, and staying in one’s hometown is rarely an attractive option because of the lack of job opportunities.

ANTARA FOTO/SEPTIANDA PERDANA

An officer wearing protective gear checks the temperature of an Indonesian migrant worker who arrived from Malaysia during quarantine to prevent the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), before getting exercise at Soewondo air base in Medan, North Sumatra province, Indonesia, April 11, 2020 in this photo taken by Antara Foto.

Separately, the head of the Bali Manpower, Energy and Mineral Resources Office, Ida Bagus Ngurah Arda, said the number of migrant workers from Bali had started to increase following the decline in Covid-19 cases in Bali and other parts of Indonesia, in addition to the global relaxation of community mobility restrictions.

He said the migrant workers who had left Bali had secured job acceptance letters from either a final employer or a placement company. The five official destinations for migrant workers from Bali are Italy, Turkey, New Zealand, the Maldives and the United States.

(This article was translated by Hendarsyah Tarmizi).