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VI. Response of the International Community

The International Program on the Elimination of Child Labor of the International Labor Organization (IPEC)

Since 2002, IPEC, with funding from the Netherlands and in collaboration with local NGOs, has run programs to address child domestic labor in the greater Jakarta area.  In 2003, 132 child domestic workers, boys and girls ages fifteen to eighteen, were enrolled in vocational skills classes (sewing, electrical repair, driving, handicraft, and cooking), and thirty-six were enrolled in non-formal education classes.²⁷⁶  In 2003, the IPEC programs also withdrew a total of twenty-four children under age fifteen from domestic work, and provided them with financial assistance to return to school.²⁷⁷   

According to IPEC official Pandji Putranto, local NGOs have been pushing the Jakarta regional government since 2002 to pass a regulation mandating a weekly day of rest for domestic workers.  This, the IPEC official stressed, is very important as it would enable domestic workers to have time to rest and visit their families, seek help if in abusive and exploitative work situations, and would enable NGOs to gain access to domestic workers and address their workplace concerns.²⁷⁸ Notably, on January 23, 2002, the Minister of Manpower and Transmigration and the Minister for Women’s Empowerment made a joint statement in Jakarta declaring that domestic workers have “the right to enjoy weekly rest days.”²⁷⁹   As of this writing, more than two years after the statement was made, it had yet to be translated into enforceable law.²⁸⁰  A chief obstacle, according to an IPEC official, is that the government does not view the exploitation of child domestic workers as a problem.²⁸¹   As noted above, this view was echoed by an official from the national Ministry of Manpower itself who told us that a weekly day of rest and minimum wages for domestic workers are not warranted.

Finally, IPEC is providing technical assistance to Indonesia in creating time-bound programs for the elimination of the worst forms child labor in sectors other than child domestic work such as:  fishing, footwear, mining, sale and trafficking of drugs, and commercial sex trafficking.  There are no time-bound programs for child domestic labor because the Indonesian government has not recognized it as a priority for the national plan of action on the worst forms of child labor.²⁸²

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF)

UNICEF had a short-term project, in collaboration with a local NGO, in 2004 in the greater Jakarta area that ended in December 2004 due to lack of funding.²⁸³  The project provided vocational skills (sewing, cooking, and handicrafts), as well as gender and life skills training to 102 child domestic workers.²⁸⁴  Some employers, however, prevented girls from attending even though they had previously agreed that the girls could attend.²⁸⁵  For instance, “At the time of the classes, employers would give the child domestic worker household work or would leave the house so that the domestic worker had to stay home and watch the children,” said Yustina Rostiawati of Atma Jaya Catholic University, who administered the UNICEF program.²⁸⁶

Both IPEC’s existing program and programs like that of UNICEF will be ineffective in the long run because its beneficiaries can only participate in the program at the employer’s whim.  Such efforts are no substitute for legal protection affording basic labor rights to domestic workers and recognition by the Indonesian government that child domestic workers are vulnerable to abuse and exploitation and must be protected.

Other International Donors

The Asian Development Bank, the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID), Deutche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (German Technical Cooperation) (GTZ), and the World Bank are currently providing financial assistance to Indonesia for vocational and technical training and basic education.²⁸⁷  The United States Department of Labor is supporting ILO-IPEC’s time-bound programs for children in the fishing and footwear industries.²⁸⁸  The German government and the U.S. Department of Labor are co-funding the time-bound program involving children in the sale, trafficking, and production of drugs.²⁸⁹

In 2001, GTZ funded local NGOs working on child domestic labor in Surabaya, Semarang, Yogyakarta, and Jakarta.²⁹⁰  In 2002, GTZ and the NGO JARAK (a coalition of NGOs working on child labor) organized a workshop on domestic workers in Jakarta.