Page 32 - e-KLIPING KETENAGAKERJAAN 23 JUNI 2020

Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi announced in May that four Indonesian sailors who had been
registered to the Chinese fishing vessel Long Xin 629 had died.

The deaths of the four sailors, one of whom was buried at sea, exposed the grim conditions that
Indonesian migrant workers face in the fisheries sector. Earlier this month, two Indonesians
jumped off a Chinese vessel as it was underway in the Strait of Malacca. They were allegedly
victims of human trafficking.

According to a report by Destructive Fishing Watch (DFW), at least 30 Indonesian crew members
were victims of such violations aboard Chinese vessels between November 2019 and June of
this year. Seven of those sailors reportedly died, three remain missing, and 20 have survived.

Anjar Prihantoro, deputy head of protection at the Agency for the Protection of Indonesian
Migrant Workers (BP2MI), said that despite the wide media exposure over the past weeks, China
ranked fourth among nations with the highest number of complaints from workers aboard fishing
vessels.

Speaking at the launch of a policy brief by the Indonesia Ocean Justice Initiative (IOJI), Anjar
said that the most complaints came from workers aboard vessels from Taiwan, South Korea and
Peru, based on data collected from 2018 to May of this year.

“Almost half of the 411 complaints we received were about unpaid salaries, which means their
companies weren’t bona fide,” he said.

The IOJI delivered several recommendations to improve governance, such as calling for the
issuance of derivative regulations for the 2017 Migrant Worker Protection Law and the
ratification of international conventions governing the protection of crew members aboard
fishing vessels.

During the same discussion, Manpower Minister Ida Fauziyah said the modern slavery
experienced by Indonesian seafarers was rooted in a flawed placement process.

She pointed out how the issuance of licenses for placement agencies was susceptible to abuse
because of a lack of recruitment data collection, training and certification for prospective crew
members. The monitoring process was also unenforced, she said.
“I met some of the workers who had come back from [South] Korea. Almost all of them lacked
protections and skills and consequently received low salaries and worked at unlicensed agencies.
These are a few examples out of the thousands of other cases. It was really striking,” Ida said.

She said the recent incidents had put pressure on the government to fast-track the implementing
regulations for the 2017 law, particularly for protections aboard commercial vessels.

The 2017 Migrant Worker Protection Law is the legal umbrella for the protection of Indonesian
migrant workers, including crew members aboard foreign fishing vessels. The government
missed the legally mandated deadline to issue the law’s implementing regulations in November
2019.

In the draft regulation, she said, it was hoped that the protection of fishing vessel crew members
would be more comprehensive and include provisions governing pre- and postplacement
protections in addition to the guarantees during the length of employment.

She said the forthcoming regulation sought to tackle most of the unresolved issues, such as
overlapping licenses, poor data collection and poor coordination among ministries and
institutions. It also touched on the problem of low worker competencies and poor supervision.

31