Lack of protection concerns likely delayed maid deal

PETALING JAYA: Insufficient protection for migrant workers could be one of the factors that halted the signing of the agreement between the Malaysian and Indonesian governments, a human resource group says.

“We are not surprised that the Malaysia-Indonesia Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on the Recruitment and Placement of Indonesian Domestic Workers (PDI) is not ready to be inked next week as planned,” said National Association of Human Resources Malaysia (Pusma) president Zarina Ismail, who urged the Malaysian government to urgently improve local labour laws by including better protection for migrant workers.

“As local labour laws do not provide sufficient protection for migrant workers, therefore Indonesia will naturally seek to ensure the MOU will provide protection where local laws fall short,” she said in a statement yesterday.