Lower wages is the reason for not sending housemaids to the Middle East

The Indonesian government has now cited lower wages as the reason for not sending housemaids to the Middle East, but the fact remains that the country's leader is against Indonesian women working as domestic workers abroad.

“The report about the decision to continue with blocking maids from traveling to the Middle East is true, but we have not yet received the order from the ministry,” a senior Indonesian diplomat told Arab News on Monday.

Indonesian minister for manpower and transmigration Hanif Dhakiri told reporters in Jakarta that the decision reflects the order by President Joko Widodo that aims to set a road map for stopping Indonesian women from going abroad as maids.

Widodo had at a national congress meeting on Feb. 14 vowed to stop sending housemaids abroad, saying that it was contrary to the country’s “self-esteem and dignity” and had directed the labor department to come up with a comprehensive plan in that regard. The government has, however, maintained that the 1.4 million Indonesian maids currently working in the Middle East could continue to do so.

Earlier, the Indonesian government had announced that it would start sending maids to the Kingdom, if sponsors agreed to the conditions including monthly wages of SR1,700, Friday off and overtime payment. Indonesia, one of the major sources of female migrant workers in the region, has put a ban on sending housemaids since 2011.

Notably, about 1.5 million women, mostly from Indonesia and the Philippines, work in the Kingdom and 80 percent of them are primarily housemaids.