Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Sumiati binti Salan Mustafa who was recently tortured by her Saudi Arabian employer would have a lung surgery, an Indonesian government official said.

"Sumiati has undergone plastic surgery, and she is now prepared for a lung surgery," Director of the Workforce and Transmigration Ministry`s Migrant Worker Placement Rostiawati said on Sunday.

Speaking in a press conference for the launching of ASEAN Employee Services Trade Union Council (ASETUC) here, she said her ministry would try to enable Sumiati`s father to go to Saudi Arabia.

During his visit, he would accompany her daughter during the lung surgery process as the 24-year-old Sumiati wanted, Rostiawati said.

"We are doing our best to handle all things needed for the trip of Sumiati`s father so that he can take care of her daughter during her lung surgery process and medical treatment," she said.

With the sound medical treatment, Sumiati was expected to recover from her ailing condition soon so that she could testify as the key witness for her employer`s alleged brutality case, she said.

"This case must be tried by the local court with which Sumiati`s employer gets punishment for what she has done to Sumiati," she said.

At the press briefing, Rieke Diah Pitaloka, member of the House of Representatives` (DPR) Commission IX overseeing manpower, called on the government not to ignore violence cases that other Indonesian migrant workers still faced.

Among the cases that the Indonesian government needs to pay serious attention to were the ones that Siti Hajar and three other Indonesian workers in Malaysia had undergone, she said.

Siti Hajar was the victim of her employer`s brutality but Michel, her Malaysian employer, remained free after appealing to the country`s higher court for her eight-year-in-jail punishment.

Three other Indonesian workers were also shot dead by the Malaysian police last March.

"Don`t let new violence cases happen but old cases should neither be ignored," said the legislator of the Indonesian Democratic Party-Struggle (PDIP) faction.

Sumiati herself had reportedly been allowed to leave King Fahd`s hospital in Medina.
Okaz Daily reported on Sunday that Sumiati`s lawyer was waiting for the result of Saudi Arabian police`s investigation over his client.

Spokesman of the Saudi Arabian workforce ministry, Hatab bin Soleh, has asked the Sumiati case not to be generalized because it was only a case, which could not represent the whole situation.

The Saudi Arabian workforce ministry recorded that there were at least 270,000 foreign domestic workers in the country at the moment.

They were legal workers. Majority of them had been treated well by their employers and protected by the memorandum of understanding and the Saudi Arabian workforce ministerial regulations.

According to the workforce minister`s regulation number 1/738 dated on 16/5/1425 H, all sorts of human trafficking, working contract violation, and inhuman and immoral treatment were prohibited.

The foreign workers` employers who ignored all existing regulations would get sanctioned, such as not allowing to employ migrant workers for five years.
If the same employers repeatedly violated the regulations, they would no longer be allowed to employ foreign workers, Hatab bin Soleh said.

Saudi Arabia currently employs 927,500 Indonesian migrant workers. making it the second biggest user of Indonesian manpower after Malaysia.
(ANT/A024)

Editor: AA Ariwibowo

COPYRIGHT © 2010

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