The Jakarta Globe, February 11, 2014.
Jakarta. The last time Anita Hatahuruk’s family heard from the 35-year-old migrant worker she was aching to return home. The months she spent abroad had been exhausting. An employment agent in Binjai, North Sumatra, had promised Anita work in a restaurant in Malaysia. She moved overseas in August, leaving behind her family’s simple wood and plaster home in Binjai with a female agent named Umi Kalsum.
But Umi’s assurances that Anita would work in a restaurant were a sham. She was forced to work as a maid somewhere in Malaysia. The work was tiring, she complained. She wanted to come back to Binjai and be with her brother Faisal and her sister Ika. Anita sent her sister an excited text message on Jan. 30 explaining that she was about to fly back home, according to reports on the Indonesian news portal Liputan6.com.
“Today Adek [younger sister] depart,” the text began. “Kak [sister] will arrive tomorrow.”
She later tried to call Ika but the line quickly went dead.
“Kak, kak, kak,” Anita said before falling silent.
On Jan. 31, Anita failed to arrive in Indonesia. Seven days later a crew of fishermen made a grisly discovery off the cost of Bagansiapiapi, the tiny capital of Rokan Hilir district, Riau. The men found a coffin floating in the waters of the Strait of Malacca — a strip of ocean separating peninsular Malaysia from the Indonesian island of Sumatra.
Inside they found a young woman’s decomposing body. The men quickly handed the coffin over to local police, who discovered a passport bearing the name Anita Purnama Boru Hutahuruk stuffed inside. Investigators also found a gold ring and gold necklace belonging to Anita as well as a single ringgit, according to Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) lawmaker Rieke Diah Pitaloka.
The lawmaker, a member of the House of Representatives’ commission on labor, delivered the news to the House on Tuesday.
“The case of the migrant worker in Taiwan who was tortured by her employer has not been solved,” she said, referring to a woman left paralyzed by abuse. “But recently our people were surprised with the news of an Indonesian migrant worker who died and her coffin was thrown into the sea.”
National Mandate Party (PAN) lawmaker Dradjad Wibowo said the string of cases involving migrant workers abroad was evidence that Indonesia has not done enough to provide its own people with work. Millions of Indonesians are currently employed as laborers and domestic helpers abroad. Instead of focusing on migrant protection, the government should instead puts its efforts to bring jobs to rural Indonesia, he said.
“The nation’s policy should not be about protecting migrant workers, but instead building a strong economy and education [system] so every citizen can get a decent job in Indonesia,” Dradjad said. “The export of low-skilled workers should be stopped. There have been too many painful and embarrassing incidents.”
It’s been a busy start of the year for House Commission IX. The press was captivated by the tragic story of Erwiana Sulistyaningsih, a 23-year-old maid who was allegedly tortured by her employers in Hong Kong. She was the latest Indonesian domestic worker to suffer abuse at the hands of her employers. Photos of Erwiana’s injuries inspired outrage in Indonesia and abroad. But the discovery of a woman’s body floating off the coast of Indonesia was all together more shocking.
For Anita’s family, the callous disposal of their loved one’s body was only the first affront. Police in Riau said they would ship Anita’s body to Binjai for burial for Rp 7 million ($574) — a sizable sum for Anita’s family.
“We don’t have that much money,” her sister Sri Nilawati told Liputan6.com.
They decided to instead spend Rp 2 million to rent an ambulance, covering the transportation costs themselves. But when the family called police in Riau they said it was too late. Anita’s remains were already en-route to Binjai. Distressed the family met up with police in the city of Pinang, South Labuhan Batu district, to accept the delivery.
Police then asked for an additional Rp 1.3 million, Sri told Liputan6.com.
“I said we don’t have more money, so we gave [them] only Rp 1,150,000,” Sri told the news portal.
The family just wants to know what happened to Anita. They opened the woman’s coffin on Feb. 8 to discover bruises on her neck and one of her eyes missing. They think she was strangled to death, but don’t know who could be responsible. Umi, the woman who took Anita to Malaysia, has gone missing. Police haven’t even been able to determine whether the coffin was dumped overboard in Indonesia, Malaysia or somewhere in between. Investigators said she died four days before her body was discovered.
The family is equally confused. Some said Anita was murdered and dropped in the sea. Others said her boat caught on fire. They lack the resources to push for a wider investigation, one sister told local media.
“This is still a mystery for our family,” Ika told Liputan6.com. “We really want to investigate how could she die [and] decay like that. We don’t have [enough money] to report to the police or to [go] to Malaysia, the place where our sister worked in the past.”
Indonesia Migrant Care, a domestic advocacy group, said all signs point to the involvement of a human trafficking network.
“I’m afraid she might be the victim of a big human trafficking syndicate,” Migrant Care director Anis Hidayah said. “There have been many victims [of traffickers] who have never been revealed.”
She urged the government to push for further investigation into Anita’s death.
“Her family specially demands that the government responds properly to this case,” Anis said. “They deserved to know why she died.”
Rieke said that if an investigation rules Anita’s death as a murder, the government needs to ensure that the perpetrator is brought to justice — regardless of their home country.
“Up until now, according to the family, no one from the government contacted them about this incident,” Rieke said.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the matter was still under investigation. If police in Riau determine that Anita was murdered in Malaysia, local law enforcement will reach out to police in the neighboring country, ministry spokesman Michael Tene said.
“The case is being handled by Riau police,” Michael said. “But of course our representative office in Malaysia will be ready to help the investigation by the authorized institution here.”
But cross-border cooperation could take time, he warned.
“There’s a legal process,” Michael said. “It is understood by the police that to establish a cooperation with police of other countries, they have to follow procedures.”
*
di 11 feb 2014 - 21:01