Jember (ANTARA News) - Indonesian migrant worker Riadiyanto died of a heart attack in Saudi Arabia on February 3 but his body had yet to be sent home, a workforce official said.

"We don`t know yet when Riadiyanto`s body will be sent home," Head of the Jember workforce office Muhammad Thamrin told ANTARA here Wednesday.

Riadiyanto, resident of Puger Kulon village, Puger sub-district, Jember regency, had worked for a company in Saudi Arabia for several months but he died of a heart attack on February 3.

He said he had been coordinating with the Indonesian embassy but the final date for flying the disease back to his mourning family was not yet available.

He had even handed over all the papers needed for flying Riadiyanto`s body home to the National Agency for the Placement and Protection of Overseas Labor (BNP2TKI), Thamrin said.

The mourning family was still waiting for Riadiyanto`s disease in uncertainty. "I urge the family to remain patient," he said.

Indonesian migrant workers are not always treated humanely abroad.

Teguh Wardoyo, the Foreign Ministry`s director for protecting Indonesian people and entities, recently said lots of the workers were not paid by their employers.

He said about eighty percent of 2,116 troubled migrant workers who had returned to Indonesia from the Middle East had stopped working because they had received their wages.

"We are doing our best to have their rights respected. If their (former) employers refuse to pay them, the Indonesian embassies and consulate generals will report their employers to the police," he said.

Indonesian workers do not only fill the casual workforce markets in many Middle Eastern countries but also in Asia, such as Malaysia, Singapore, and Hong Kong (China).

In Malaysia, more than a million Indonesians were working in sectors as construction and plantations.
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Editor: Bambang
COPYRIGHT © 2012

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