National News - January 13, 2008
Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post, Kuala Lumpur
A cheap apartment is divided into four rooms, each occupied by two or three Indonesian migrant workers every night.
In one of the six-meter-square rooms, newly married Djoko Suryanto, 25, and Muhamad Syaifuddin, 24, store all their belongings. Both from Yogyakarta and working at a construction site in Kuala Lumpur, they don't even bother to put a mattress down. They need the space, and they're content to sleep on the carpet anyway.
In the next room lives a married couple, also migrant workers, with their children, and in the third, a couple without children. Three women sleep in the fourth room.
The apartment costs them 250 ringgits (US$72) a month. All share one small living room and a toilet.
"I have to be very thrifty here. Although we have paid all our debts, I have to think about sending money to my pregnant wife in Yogyakarta," said Djoko, who was married three months ago when he visited his hometown after living in Malaysia for five years.
But he said Saturday that spending was only one of his concerns. He also had to think about renewing his work permit, which he said would cost him 2,400 ringgits.
"I'm thinking about borrowing money from my boss to pay for the permit. Fortunately, we will begin working Monday as my boss got a new construction project. I hope I can begin sending money to my wife and my parents. Since I am working abroad, they expect me to earn a lot," he told The Jakarta Post.
High expectations back home also affected Syaifuddin.
"My brother and father want to start a computer rental business as there is no such business in our area yet. They expect me to send them money regularly. But they don't understand that while we get relatively higher compensation compared to other sectors here, we get nothing when there are no projects," he said.
Syaifuddin, who was told by his mother to return home this year, plans to get married and open his own business once back in Indonesia.
Both Djoko and Syaifuddin said they could get up to 1,200 ringgits a month while working on a construction project.
Syaifuddin said he hoped he could meet one day with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and relate his story.
Yudhoyono, who met Friday with Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, promised better protection for Indonesian migrant workers in the country. The President left for Jakarta on Saturday.
Both Djoko and Sayifuddin said things were getting easier, as they had been working for years in Malaysia. For newcomers like 20-year-old Wisnu Subroto, who works at an electronics factory in Klang, Selangor, it's more difficult.
Freshly graduated from high school in his hometown of Jember, East Java, Wisnu seized the chance to work abroad. His parents had to sell their motorbike to pay the Rp 6 million required by an agency for a visa and work permit.
"The agency told me that was the only fee I had to pay. But when I got here, I found my salary had to be cut to pay for my work permit. So I have little to save or send my family," said Wisnu.
"I have to live very cheaply for one year. Anyway, I am glad that I have at least some money to send home," Wisnu, who can get up to 800 ringgits a month, said.
According to the Malaysian government, there are around 2 million Indonesian citizens working in the country. Some 1.2 million have permits while an estimated 800,000 work illegally.
An official at the Indonesian Embassy in Kuala Lumpur said the pressure to send money home forced scores of Indonesian female migrant workers, especially those without permits, to become mistresses to police officers and others.
Wisnu confirmed the phenomenon but said it affected a relatively few women.
"That mostly applies only to illegal workers who fear being sent home because they don't have permits," he said.
"It's very difficult to get a job in Indonesia. By living with a Malaysian citizen or a police officer, they feel safe."
