Mixed view on progress in ending abuse of domestic helpers

A year after the horrific abuse suffered by Erwiana Sulistyaningsih shocked the world, labour activists and the Indonesian and Hong Kong governments were still debating whether enough has been done to ensure the protection of domestic helpers.

Reyna Usman, director general in charge of supervision and placement of workers at the Indonesian labour ministry, stressed that his government remained committed to ensuring better conditions and protection for workers abroad under President Joko Widodo.

"We want the recruitment agencies to take responsibility for their maids not just before they leave their training, but also after," she said. "We have also banned a number of these recalcitrant agencies. We had 575 agencies when we started our new rules and now we have 517."

She also said that there had been a trend of more Indonesians choosing to work in Taiwan instead of Hong Kong. There are 227,000 Indonesian workers in Taiwan, compared to about 170,000 in Hong Kong.

But members of a commission set up by a presidential decree to advise the government on migrant worker issues and violence against women said that maid abuse was a long-running problem.

"The violence that domestic helpers suffered keeps being repeated over and over again," said Sri Nurherwati, head of the recovery subcommission under the National Commission on Violence Against Women.