Indonesian embassy in Saudi Arabia helped domestic workers collect IDR40 billion in unpaid salaries last year

Sukmi binti Sardi Umar after her arrival at Soekarno-Hatta Airport in July 2017, along with family members and government officials. Sukmi had reportedly worked in Saudi Arabia for 22 years without getting paid by her employer. The Indonesian embassy helped her recover IDR 586 million for her back pay, equivalent to 44,000 USD.
Sukmi binti Sardi Umar after her arrival at Soekarno-Hatta Airport in July 2017, along with family members and government officials. Sukmi had reportedly worked in Saudi Arabia for 22 years without getting paid by her employer. The Indonesian embassy helped her recover IDR 586 million for her back pay, equivalent to 44,000 USD.

Although the Indonesian government banned domestic workers from working to Middle Eastern countries in 2015 due to the overwhelming number of stories about employers abusing them, there are still many Indonesians working in Saudi households who either arrived before the ban or came to work there illegally.

Recently we have seen numerous many stories about Indonesian domestic workers in Saudi Arabia (and other countries, even England) who have labored for years and in a few cases even decades without being properly paid. But these cases, while extreme, are also part of a shockingly common trend. So much so that the Indonesian Embassy in Riyadh revealed that it had formed their own “debt collection team” to actually knock on the doors of non-paying Saudi employers to get Indonesian workers the salaries they deserve.


Read also: Kept as a slave in England for 18 years, rescued Indonesian woman finally coming home today


The Indonesian Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Agus Maftuh, told Tempo yesterday that many Saudi employers did not react well when confronted by the embassy team about their non-payment, with many expressing anger or becoming threatening. But he said some were also cooperative.

Agus said one way many employers attempted to cheat their workers was by using a form, which they make their workers sign with their thumbprints, as proof they had deposited their salaries despite not providing any proof of any actual financial transaction.

The ambassador said it was difficult to handle such cases through legal channels and so they would sometimes use diplomatic channels as well by putting pressure on officials, usually the local governor.


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Although it’s impossible to say how many Indonesian domestic workers are in Saudi Arabia and how many are not getting paid since so many are there illegally, it’s clear that the embassy’s efforts have seen significant success in getting its citizens their rightfully earned money. Agus said that the total amount of salary money it had gotten previously non-paying employers to give their workers last year was IDR40 billion (US$2.8 million).

Agus noted that one of the largest unpaid salary they recovered from an employer last year was IDR580 million for a woman named Sukmi who had worked without pay for 22 years. But he noted that there had been another even larger payment of IDR600 million to one worker.

Common reasons why migrant workers continue to work for employers that abuse them or withhold their pay include threats or acts of violence, threats of having them jailed, the withholding of passports and isolation from families or friends they could ask for help.

A Saudi man, Homaidan Al-Turki has been imprisoned in the United States since 2006, for raping and enslaving an Indonesian domestic worker in the US. During his trial, he and his defense lawyer claimed that withholding pay and forbidding their worker contact with the outside world were aspects of Saudi culture that the US justice system was biased against. The judge didn’t buy that argument and he was sentenced to 28 years in prison, but Saudi Arabians took to social media saying that his conviction was unjust and that he should be paroled and returned to his home country.



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