Migrant Workers’ Access to Justice at Home: Indonesia

Each year, around half a million Indonesians travel abroad to work, half of those to the Middle East. Many are women who suffer abuse and exploitation when they work abroad but have virtually no access to recourse within their host country’s legal system. The vulnerability of migrant workers abroad makes it crucial for them to be able to seek redress in their own countries.

Migrant Workers’ Access to Justice at Home: Indonesia is the first comprehensive study of migrant workers’ access to justice in their country of origin. A collaborative effort by the Open Society International Migration Initiative, the Tifa Foundation, and the Migrant Worker Access to Justice Project, the report analyzes how migrant workers may access justice in Indonesia, and identifies the systemic barriers that prevent them from receiving redress for harms they suffer before, during, and after their work abroad.

The report also provides recommendations for improving access to justice and private sector accountability in 11 key areas, addressed to government, parliament, civil society, donors, and others.The report is also available in Bahasa.

This resource is the first in the Open Society Foundations’ Migrant Workers’ Access to Justice Series. The second report, Migrant Workers’ Access to Justice at Home: Nepal, was published in 2014.