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Monday 27 June 2011
Jakarta to stop sending maids to Saudi Arabia after beheading
Indonesia will stop sending maids to Saudi Arabia from Aug 1, and a joint taskforce will be set up by Jakarta to discuss how best to protect these workers, a top official of the Transmigration Ministry said yesterday.
Jakarta to stop sending maids to Saudi Arabia after beheading
23 June 2011
Indonesia will stop sending maids to Saudi Arabia from Aug 1, and a joint taskforce will be set up by Jakarta to discuss how best to protect these workers, a top official of the Transmigration Ministry said yesterday.
The urgency in stopping the flow of domestic workers to the kingdom follows the uproar caused by the beheading with a sword of 54-year-old maid Ruyati Sapubi in Saudi Arabia last week, after she was convicted of murdering her Saudi employer.
And anger over the issue is heightened by news that another Indonesian maid might soon be beheaded after also being sentenced to death for killing her employer.
Transmigration Ministry director-general Rena Usman was quoted as saying by the detik.com news website that the flow of Indonesian maids to Saudi Arabia had actually dropped to a trickle.
From Jan 1 this year, only five Saudi employers a day applied to employ maids from Indonesia, compared with an average of 1,000 applications a day in previous years, the website quoted the official as saying. The drastic drop has been caused by widespread reporting of recent cases of worker abuse in the oil-rich country.
Around 70 per cent of the 1.2 million Indonesians working in Saudi Arabia are domestic helpers, according to officials.
Following the Ruyati case, Saudi Arabia yesterday apologised for failing to inform Indonesia about the beheading last Saturday.
The apology came during a meeting between Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa and the Saudi Ambassador to Indonesia, Mr Abdurrahman bin Mohammed Al-Khayyat, an Indonesian Foreign Ministry spokesman said yesterday, Agence France-Presse reported. ‘The ambassador apologised and regretted the situation and said that such a thing wouldn’t happen again in future,’ said spokesman Michael Tene.
Indonesia earlier this week recalled its ambassador to Riyadh for consultations, as lawmakers demanded a strong response to the execution.
Meanwhile, Indonesia’s Foreign Ministry plans to send some 4.3 billion rupiah (S$619,000) to its embassy in Riyadh to pay compensation money for the release of the maid who has been sentenced to death.
Indonesian media reported yesterday that Darsem Dawud Tawar from West Java was convicted in May 2009 of murdering her Yemeni employer in Saudi Arabia.
According to the Indonesian Embassy, the judge sentenced her to death despite her plea that the killing was an act of self-defence as her employer had tried to rape her, The Jakarta Globe reported yesterday.
In January, the victim’s family forgave Darsem and agreed to spare her if she came up with 4.3 billion rupiah in compensation - what is known in Arabic as diyat, or blood money.
The Indonesian government has been given six months to collect the sum, but is allowed to seek an extension.
Ruyati was not the first Indonesian migrant worker to be beheaded in Saudi Arabia.
In January 2008, Yanti Sukardi was beheaded for killing her employer. The Saudi government said Yanti had suffocated her employer with a pillow and then stolen her jewellery.
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Jakarta to stop sending maids to Saudi Arabia after beheading
23 June 2011
Indonesia will stop sending maids to Saudi Arabia from Aug 1, and a joint taskforce will be set up by Jakarta to discuss how best to protect these workers, a top official of the Transmigration Ministry said yesterday.
The urgency in stopping the flow of domestic workers to the kingdom follows the uproar caused by the beheading with a sword of 54-year-old maid Ruyati Sapubi in Saudi Arabia last week, after she was convicted of murdering her Saudi employer.
And anger over the issue is heightened by news that another Indonesian maid might soon be beheaded after also being sentenced to death for killing her employer.
Transmigration Ministry director-general Rena Usman was quoted as saying by the detik.com news website that the flow of Indonesian maids to Saudi Arabia had actually dropped to a trickle.
From Jan 1 this year, only five Saudi employers a day applied to employ maids from Indonesia, compared with an average of 1,000 applications a day in previous years, the website quoted the official as saying. The drastic drop has been caused by widespread reporting of recent cases of worker abuse in the oil-rich country.
Around 70 per cent of the 1.2 million Indonesians working in Saudi Arabia are domestic helpers, according to officials.
Following the Ruyati case, Saudi Arabia yesterday apologised for failing to inform Indonesia about the beheading last Saturday.
The apology came during a meeting between Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa and the Saudi Ambassador to Indonesia, Mr Abdurrahman bin Mohammed Al-Khayyat, an Indonesian Foreign Ministry spokesman said yesterday, Agence France-Presse reported. ‘The ambassador apologised and regretted the situation and said that such a thing wouldn’t happen again in future,’ said spokesman Michael Tene.
Indonesia earlier this week recalled its ambassador to Riyadh for consultations, as lawmakers demanded a strong response to the execution.
Meanwhile, Indonesia’s Foreign Ministry plans to send some 4.3 billion rupiah (S$619,000) to its embassy in Riyadh to pay compensation money for the release of the maid who has been sentenced to death.
Indonesian media reported yesterday that Darsem Dawud Tawar from West Java was convicted in May 2009 of murdering her Yemeni employer in Saudi Arabia.
According to the Indonesian Embassy, the judge sentenced her to death despite her plea that the killing was an act of self-defence as her employer had tried to rape her, The Jakarta Globe reported yesterday.
In January, the victim’s family forgave Darsem and agreed to spare her if she came up with 4.3 billion rupiah in compensation - what is known in Arabic as diyat, or blood money.
The Indonesian government has been given six months to collect the sum, but is allowed to seek an extension.
Ruyati was not the first Indonesian migrant worker to be beheaded in Saudi Arabia.
In January 2008, Yanti Sukardi was beheaded for killing her employer. The Saudi government said Yanti had suffocated her employer with a pillow and then stolen her jewellery.
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