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Deported migrant workers return from Malaysia
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This picture taken on July 7, 2021 shows migrant workers at a vegetable farm in the Cameron Highlands in Malaysia's Pahang state. (Agence France-Press/Mohd Rasfan)
T
he Foreign Ministry repatriated 192 deported Indonesian migrant workers from numerous immigration detention centers on peninsular Malaysia on Thursday night.
The ministry, Tempo reported, is prioritizing vulnerable deported migrant workers, including pregnant women, mothers with babies, elderly people and those with illnesses.
The Indonesian government decided to expedite their return following overcapacity at the Malaysian detention centers and a lack of sanitary facilities.
The migrant workers arrived at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport on a chartered plane.
The 192 workers will transit through Wisma Atlet – the former athletes village turned into an emergency hospital for COVID-19 patients – in Jakarta for data collection and to receive COVID-19 booster vaccines, before being sent to their respective home towns.
The workers are from East Java, West Nusa Tenggara, West Java and North Sumatra.
At a joint working group meeting on July 27-28 between the two countries, the Indonesian delegation underlined the importance of expediting the deportation of Indonesians from Malaysian detention centers.
The issue is part of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on Indonesian domestic worker protection in Malaysia.
Indonesia resumed sending workers to Malaysia on Aug. 1, ending a two-week halt after both sides agreed to resolve labor issues.
Malaysia conceded a number of problems that prevented the country from complying with bilateral agreements on the protection and hiring of Indonesian workers.
Malaysia relies on millions of foreign workers, who mainly come from Indonesia, Bangladesh and Nepal, to fill factory and plantation jobs shunned by locals. Indonesia typically sends hundreds of domestic migrant workers there every year, but has slowly changed tack after strengthening its labor protection laws in 2017.
