PUTRAJAYA – Malaysia and Indonesia have agreed to implement the concept of “one maid, one task”, stating that an Indonesian domestic worker can only work in households of no more than six family members, said the Human Resources Ministry.
In a statement today, the ministry said the agreement was reached at a meeting between Human Resources Minister Datuk Seri M. Saravanan and his counterpart Ida Fauziy in Indonesia.
The Malaysia-Indonesia Technical Committee Meeting on the memorandum of understanding (MoU) on the recruitment and placement of Indonesian domestic workers will be held on December 14 to finalise details of the matter, and enable both parties to reach an agreement so that the MoU can be signed as early as January, 2022.
The statement issued in conjunction with Saravanan’s meeting with the Indonesian manpower minister said the issue of the “one-channel system” had also been agreed between the two ministers to enable effective monitoring of maids’ entry into Malaysia.
Saravanan paid a working visit to Jakarta, Indonesia from Sunday until today following the working visit of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob to Indonesia last month.
At a joint press conference with Ismail Sabri and Indonesian President Joko Widodo in conjunction with the visit, they expressed their commitment to expedite the signing of the MoU to meet the needs and demands of employers in Malaysia.
The MoU was signed for the first time on May 13, 2006 in Bali, and the protocol to amend the MoU – which expired on May 30, 2016 – was subsequently signed on May 31, 2011 in Bandung.
Saravanan said the signing of the MoU needed to be implemented immediately as Indonesia will only allow the entry of Indonesian labourers into Malaysia for the plantation sector after the MoU is finalised.
The cabinet meetings on April 7 and November 12 this year had agreed on the entry of foreign workers in the plantation sector into Malaysia as a special exception, he said.
Meanwhile, the ministry said Indonesia welcomed the implementation of the Working for Workers mobile app as a platform for complaints on labour issues and requested that it be used effectively to receive complaints from labourers and domestic workers in Malaysia.
As of October 5, 12,132 cases have been flagged via the app, with the main complaints being related to unpaid/late salaries, and illegal salary deductions. – Bernama, December 7, 2021
