Friday, January 30, 2009

Apparently

Its still possible for this to happen in a modern city in a modern time. I am totally shocked. Surprised this has not been reported by the local press here in Indonesia. Don't they get news feeds? Why are people not in the streets?

7 comments:

schmerly said...

Yea PJ lets just wait and see if the MUI condemns this, or perhaps the FPI will have a demo outside the Saudi Arabian Embassy??

pj said...

People should be in the streets but don't expect the FPI anytime soon. Really not their specialty.

I don't see this so much as a religious issue as an issue of national interest. Indonesians should know what happens to their exported workforce and the press has a responsibility to report the news. Politians are always speaking of ways to advance the rakyat and yet they too have been historically silent on this issue. Why isn't the treatment of foreign workers a platform plank (this is a rhetorical question)? Nationalism seems to be a fair weather issue here. As Oigal has pointed out on IM the remittances from foreign workers is such that Jakarta deliberately overlooks these incidents in fear of losing out on the cash cow.

Anonymous said...

those papers think it won't make great news i reckon.

to me, rapists have no place on earth. someone should send them to hell.

Rob Baiton said...

It is interesting that the Indonesian press have not picked up on the issue. The Indonesian press is fairly good at picking up and running with tragic stories like this one.

The Minister of Labor and Transmigration has recently issued a Reg on the placement and protection of Indonesian Migrant Workers which covers this sort of issue (although it comes into force on 1 Feb 2009).

I was reading an ILO report where remittances from Indonesian Migrant Workers is expected to top USD 1 billion (so there is a fair bit at stake).

The opposing view to the Stump's (aka Oigal) would be that the government is working on ways to ensure that its migrant workers are protected in order to make the cash cow even bigger.

The other issue that is interesting for me is that the victim is being reported as suffering from AIDS. Nah, Indonesian Migrant Workers (TKI) have to undergo a medical before placement and they are tested for HIV, and HIV+ applicants are rejected (at least that is my understanding of the process).

So, if she is HIV+ or suffering from AIDS then the question is where did she contract the virus? This assumes that she was not HIV+ on departure and placement.

This is not a religious issue or perhaps it is, maybe this is God's way of providing justice that 46 men raped a HIV+ woman!

pj said...

Rob

Comments are appreciated!

Maybe the arab news is not considered a credible source by the press here or maybe they don't have the name of the victim.

I didn't deal with the HIV issue as I thought it would distract from the issue or a women being raped 46 times. I think that the police are denying now that the victim has HIV.

FYI For Saudi you need to provide blood, urine and stool samples to get your work permit. You won't get in if you don't pass the HIV test.

I'm pretty sure that in some arab countries foreigners that fail an HIV test are required to leave the country as soon as possible. This had happenned to a colleague and it was all we could do to get him out the country before the police came to arrest and deport him. When I resided in Saudi any piece of paper that you get - immigration wise - requires a blood test. Usually you ended up giving a couple of blood samples per year.

The market in foreign workers is a big one. I think in Saudi Indonesians are number 4 after the Indians, Pakistanis, and Filipinos so there is a large chunk of cash available. There are lots of reported abuses of TCNs and I think that Saudis are gradually reforming their systems to reduce this abuse.

I was on an Indonesian government site today (I forget the name but they deal with foreign workers but this incident was not mentioned there either).

Time will tell.

oigal said...

jeez.. I didn't think anyone but Assmad read my rantings on IM

pj said...

Oigal

Now you know!