Following the publication of photographs of a physically abused girl, Indonesia protests the lack of legal rights of Indonesian guest workers in Saudi Arabia. But if it really wants to do something about this, says an Indonesian researcher, it should first ratify the International Labour Organization (ILO) convention on the rights of migrant workers.

Last month, Indonesia was shocked by photographs of the disfigured face of a young woman. The 23 year old Sumiati Binti Salan Mustapa had been maltreated by her Saudi boss. The woman had burnt the girl’s back with an iron and removed part of her lips with a pair of scissors.

Hundreds of thousands of Indonesian young women work in the Gulf states. Mostly, they are poor women from the countryside. In the Gulf countries, their situation is usually not very good. As migrant workers, they hardly enjoy any rights and are often treated badly. In Indonesia, there are many stories of women who were locked up for years, beaten and sexually abused by their bosses. Human rights organizations have been complaining for years about the situation of migrant workers in the Gulf. According to a spokesman of Amnesty International, “The root of the problem is that the governments in the Gulf states do very little for the rights of female migrant workers.”

For Indonesia, Sumiati’s case was the last drop. President Yudhoyono spoke of ‘torture’ and called for a special ministerial meeting; the Saudi ambassador was summoned for an explanation and the Indonesian minister of women’s issues travelled to Saudi Arabia to visit Sumiati binti Salan Mustapha in the hospital.

The Saudi government eventually arrested the perpetrator and apologized for what it described as an incident. But on the day an Indonesian delegation travelled to Saudi Arabia to further discuss the matter, another case came in the news: A young woman had been clubbed to death by her bosses and her body was left in a garbage dump.

Recently, the Nahdatul Ulamaa, Indonesia’s largest Islamic body, has asked for a total stop of female labour migration to Saudi Arabia. The organization even forwarded a religious argument: According to Islam, it stated, women are not allowed to travel without a male custodian accompanying them.

Yasmine Soraya, researcher on international migrants’ rights, thinks forbidding women to work in Saudi Arabia is not a realistic idea. “The women bring in a lot of hard cash that is indispensable for the economy of the Indonesian countryside.” The Indonesian government, she thinks, should rather try to pressure the Saudi government to adopt laws that protect the rights of migrant workers.

“The real problem, however, is that the International Labour Organization (ILO) convention on the rights of migrant workers has not been ratified by both Indonesia and Saudi Arabia.”

Ratifying the convention, she thinks, is the first thing the Indonesian government should do if it really wants international protection for its migrant workers abroad.