Choose Candidates Who Care For Migrant Workers

There are nearly seven million Indonesian migrant workers

They work in various countries around the world

People often call them TKI (Tenaga Kerja Indonesia / Indonesian Laborers)

This film is for all Indonesian migrant workers located around the world

This film gives information on how to choose candidates who care about migrant workers

Choose Candidates Who Care For Migrant Care Workers

What I know is that the Presidential election is to choose our leaders to come

That's Presidential elections... If it's the current Legislative elections

it's to choose our representatives to sit in parliamentary seats

(Someone) Honest and responsible

Not corrupted, and can protect us TKI

To choose a leader who can create jobs in our own country

Meaning that Indonesians aren't always working overseas

Legislative elections are set to happen on 9 April 2014

Legislative elections are elections to choose parliamentarians

The government encourages voters to exercise their rights to vote

This is the parliament of the Republic of Indonesia

There are 560 representatives here

The function of the Parliament is for legislation

It makes laws

Rieke Diah Pitaloka has been a member of Parliament from 2009-2014

A function in addition to legislation is monitoring

How does the monitoring function?

But are the laws or regulations executed or not?

And if there is a case, can we encourage the government to solve this case?

For example, whether it's cases of violence against migrant workers, human trafficking, deportation cases

Which are now mostly from Saudi Arabia and Malaysia

That is the function of the House's monitoring

The third function is for budget policy

Why is the budget so important?

It's obviously important

I've repeatedly said that migrant workers contribute the most money into the state treasury

But what is the state of migrant workers?

Rieke believes that the current budget for migrant workers is still very small

Migrant workers account for 89 trillion rupiah of the State budget

That's equivalent to 178 tonnes of gold to the State each year

The people in this government are playing a role in the trafficking of migrant workers

Not the protection of migrant workers

So there's never been any improvement for migrant workers

Okky Asokawati has also been a member of Parliament from 2009-2014

Currently we are in the discussion stage to make changes

to laws regarding the placement of Indonesian workers abroad

Because we see that these laws address more problems

in terms of business, rather than the problems of protection

She noted that many members of the House are involved in the agencies sending Migrant Workers

It's important for migrant workers not to choose candidates who are involved in the business of supplying labor

In Jakarta there is an organization that helps migrant workers called Migrant Care

Choosing legislators for migrant workers is very important because

the right choice will determine the quality of the members of the legislative

who will be sitting in the House of Representatives and deciding their fate

Anis Hidayah is the Executive Director of Migrant Care

She and her colleagues actively assist in helping migrant workers with the 2014 elections

We hope the migrant workers will be intelligent voters

Not choose simply and make choices that can be justified

The first is to ensure the candidates of a particular party is known to have a good track record as members of Parliament

For example, how was the performance of the members of parliament during the last 5 years

Then it should also be ensured that the political parties have a perspective

on concern for migrant workers, and a perspective on concern for women

Also look at the parties and do not think the legislature is independent

They cannot make decisions on their own

Parliament members are representatives of a faction

In the House of Representatives it's called a faction

Factions are the representatives of the parties

So whatever party decision must be run by a board member

I think it is important to ensure that political parties don't have a track record as perpetrators of human rights violations

Because this will determine whether a political party has a poor track record of working for human rights

And it's certainly not going to fight for the fate of the majority of migrant workers whose rights are violated in various countries

In the 2014 election there are some political party leaders who are involved in cases of human rights violations

Migrant workers need to study more thoroughly the track records of the candidates of these parties

In order for electoral offenses outside the country to be followed up by the Election Supervisory Body

Anis has been documenting the kinds of potential violations in foreign elections

Of course there are election watchdogs but I think it's a small number overseas

Anis and her colleagues also develop guidelines for selecting candidates

Migrant workers need to be more intelligent and responsible in using their voting rights

We examine the track record of the candidates for the legislature

Migrant care alone has documented the track record of the candidates for the legislative elections

for 2 capital constituencies including overseas

from the perspective of the protection of migrant workers and it will be uploaded Migrant Care's website

www.migrantcare.net which the workers will be able to access

The first criteria is how to assess the performance of politicians

who have been members of the House of Representatives for the last 5 years

How do they fight for policies, formulate budgets for the protection of migrant workers

And follow-up with the government in matters of the protection of migrant workers

We also look at how they make statements to the public

Regarding the common problems of migrant workers

The use of the Internet is an effective way to search for information about the track records of candidates

The names of these candidates can be found by searching online records

You can check these candidates, click and find out whether they've fought for migrant workers

It's already an advanced age, migrant workers are already very smart at doing this

So search for these people and decide if they can be elected or not

I think they could ask "Mr. Google", in quotation marks

They can Google, they can look at a lot of online media

And according to my observations the names will definitely appear

if they frequently voiced or fought for the fate of migrant workers

Legislative elections will be held in the country on 9 april 2014

For migrant workers abroad it will be held earlier

It will be from 30 March to 6 April 2014

Be a smart voter

Five minutes at the polling station can determine your you and your family's life for five years

Every single vote is very valuable during elections in Indonesia

What criteria would you base your choices upon?

Someone who is responsible, always disciplined and professional discipline, and also... [laughs]

Congratulations on being intelligent and responsible voters

Choose Candidates Who Care For Migrant Care Workers