Why Indonesia and Hong Kong must resolve issues faced by domestic workers
- News of hardships by domestic workers in the Chinese city dominates coverage of Hong Kong’s ties with Indonesia, which span trade, investment and tourism
- The case of Yuli Riswati, who was deported for overstaying her visa, has also sparked concern
Indonesian news site Republik Merdeka reported that Yuli had tried several times to renew her visa, only to have her requests turned down by the authorities.
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Besides covering social unrest in the city for the not-for-profit news site, Yuli also wrote about the treatment of domestic workers in Hong Kong. To protest against her arrest, supporters demonstrated at the Immigration Tower in Wan Chai with banners and posters demanding her release and asking Hong Kong to stop persecuting migrants.
Amnesty International reported in November 2013 that thousands of Indonesian women trafficked to Hong Kong faced “slavery-like” conditions, while a survey of more than 3,000 domestic workers in March that year by the Mission for Migrant Workers charity found that 58 per cent reported suffering verbal abuse, 18 per cent reported physical abuse and 6 per cent reported sexual harassment.
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While these episodes have both framed and frayed relations, ties between Indonesia and Hong Kong are multifaceted, with a history of trade, investment, cooperation and tourism. Indonesia is Hong Kong’s 22nd-largest trading partner, with trade between the two reaching US$5.4 billion in 2017. Jonathan Choi, chairman of the Chinese General Chamber of Commerce, Hong Kong, last April said Indonesia was a “connector nation” for the financial and service sectors, and thus was a country that had great potential for investors.
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Indonesia also understands the importance of Hong Kong. In April, the Hong Kong Trade Development Council and Indonesia’s Directorate General for National Export Development signed a memorandum of understanding to boost their partnership in the fields of trade and investment.
A previous move to facilitate their economic ties saw the governments in 2012 sign an agreement on the avoidance of double taxation and the prevention of income tax evasion. The 2017 Bilateral Competent Authority Agreement, meanwhile, allows Indonesia to access financial information from Hong Kong in a bid to boost tax transparency.
Tourism is another growing sector for both Hong Kong and Indonesia. In Southeast Asia, Indonesia ranks third for tourist arrivals to Hong Kong, behind the Philippines and Thailand, according to a 2018 report by the Indonesian newspaper Kompas .
A cultural partnership between the two governments is also beginning to pan out. Last year, they signed a memorandum of understanding on cultural cooperation, the scope of which included film, gastronomy and cultural education.
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None of this is to suggest that the issues faced by Indonesian domestic workers have been left by the wayside. Indonesia and Hong Kong in 2016 intensified their cooperation on immigration and employment by establishing a joint working group to address various issues encountered by Indonesians living in the city.
However, as the governments are still unable to fully address the problems related to migrant workers, it is likely that Indonesia’s relations with Hong Kong will continue to be coloured by the same issue.
At the same time, however, the two governments also see the potential for collaboration in various sectors, mainly trade and investment, buttressed by their growing cultural ties.
Sooner or later, as the relationship between the two increases and expands, Indonesia and Hong Kong will realise that issues such as the treatment of foreign workers represent an obstacle to the improvement of their partnership and they will acknowledge that more robust and serious efforts need to be taken – including being more transparent about them. ■
Muhammad Zulfikar Rakhmat is a lecturer at the Islamic University of Indonesia and research associate at the Institute for Development of Economics and Finance in Jakarta