Abstract
This chapter describes migration of Indonesian migrant workers abroad, particularly to Malaysia. Movement of people from Indonesian archipelago in Southeast Asia and beyond is historically common, yet the phenomena of overseas migrant workers are relatively recent. The erection nation-state’s borders following the process of decolonization halted the previously free flows and movements of people in the Malay world. As increasing number of working age population cannot be accommodated domestically, in the early 1980s, a number of middlemen began to send Indonesian workers abroad, particularly to the Middle East and Malaysia. The unpreparedness in responding the demand for overseas work plagued the government and resulted in ad hoc policy that failed to properly manage the flood of overseas migrant workers. The increasing number of undocumented migrant workers becomes a security and political issues in Malaysia. The deportation of undocumented migrant workers is therefore common, but in 2002 a huge deportation occurred and these thousands of migrant workers tragically stranded without any assistance in Nunukan in the border between Sabah and East Kalimantan. The Nunukan tragedy is a clear example of the state’s failure in managing the increasing cross-border labour migration.
Boundaries do not merely obstruct people from free entrance but also create a gap between the two sides. Migration takes place because of this gap: migrants attempt to take advantage of it.
Koji Miyazaki 2000
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsNotes
- 1.
The interlocutory part, particularly the review literature, is mostly derived from the draft paper, titled “A Brief Review of Borderland Studies” by Reed L Wadley (2002).
- 2.
At the time this chapter was being revised, the result of the International Court of Justice in The Hague was published advising that Indonesia had lost the case. Unsurprisingly, as anticipated, the court decision was accepted without any difficulties or complaints from Indonesia. Some polemics occurred in the press, but the public generally ignored the issue.
- 3.
These movements have been comprehensively documented by the National Archives of the Republic of Indonesia (Arsip Nasional Republik Indonesia) in 1981.
- 4.
Wertheim’s prediction about the probability of social conflict in Lampung as a consequence of rapid population growth and social tensions between migrants and local people resulted in the so-called Lampung Affair which broke out in February 1989.
- 5.
‘An Interview with Koentjaraningrat’ (Visser 1988)
- 6.
Land reform, aggressively promoted by the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) prior to the 1965 abortive coup, was identified by the New Order as a Communist policy.
- 7.
An illustration of how the elite, particularly the military, has persistently regarded transmigration as an important undertaking is shown by a request from General Suharto to the US Ambassador in Indonesia, Marshall Green, at their first meeting on 29 May 1966 when Suharto asked for a million in grants or soft loans to assist the transmigration program (Personal communication with Dr. Terry Hull, ANU, 1989).
- 8.
For a more detailed account of the continuation of the migration policy from the colonial to the post-colonial periods, see Tirtosudarmo (1997).
- 9.
- 10.
The plan was to set a target of 225,000 workers to be sent abroad as a way of easing the difficulties of absorbing the rapidly growing labour force.
- 11.
On the political dimension of the Indonesian illegal migration to Malaysia, see Tirtosudarmo (1996).
- 12.
On elaborated labour politics during the New Order period, see Hadiz (1997).
- 13.
In this regard, the New Order labour policy resembles the colonial policy that according to Breman, (1990, 144): ‘from the start had proven more interested in cheap than in free labour’.
- 14.
Among the new political parties established on the basis of labour is PBN (Partai Buruh Nasional or National Labour Party) led by Muchtar Pakpahan who also is the chairman of SBSI. Another minor party that is also placing labour issues in its political platform is PRD (Partai Rakyat Demokratik or People’s Democratic Party) under the chairmanship of Budiman Sudjatmiko. Both Pakpahan and Sudjatmiko were gaoled in the latest period of the Suharto regime.
- 15.
I would like to acknowledge the useful discussions on this issue with Yuniyanti Chuzaifah, an activist of Solidaritas Perempuan who is currently studying at Leiden University.
- 16.
For a comprehensive review of labour migration and globalisation in Southeast Asia , see Battistella (2002).
- 17.
The growing importance of the so-called transnational advocacy networks (TANs) on the issues related to cross-border mobility, particularly the trafficking and smuggling of women and children, partly result from the fact that the civil society movements in developing countries are often plagued by their limited capacity to initiate reform from within (Piper and Uhlin 2002).
- 18.
Attempts to interview these people on their business in labour export to Saudi Arabia by the author in 1997 were not successful as they tend to avoid being studied. Their refusal to be interviewed reflects the degree of secrecy in their business activities, particularly in exporting female labour as domestic workers to Saudi Arabia.
- 19.
On the role of intermediaries in the business of labour migrants in East Java , see Spaan (1994).
- 20.
Recently, a draft of a national law on the protection of Indonesian migrant workers and their families (UU TENTANG PERLINDUNGAN BURUH MIGRAN INDONESIA DAN ANGGOTA KELUARGANYA) was finally drafted by KOPBUMI and proposed to the members of parliament and to the government, as well as being disseminated to those members of the public who are concerned with the fate of migrant workers in Indonesia. The draft proposal is also parallel to what could be a long political struggle to regulate the conditions of overseas migrant workers in Indonesia.
- 21.
Several provinces, such as Central Java , East Java and West Nusa Tenggara , have begun to issue regulatory policies concerning overseas migrant workers from the provinces. Among others are the attempts to establish regional regulations on the business of overseas migrant workers in Central Java and allocation of credit to the recruiting agencies in East Java. Another initiative, for example, has been shown recently by the opening of direct Merpati flights from Mataram, West Nusa Tenggara to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in order to serve the heavy demand for transportation of migrant workers from West Nusa Tenggara to Malaysia.
- 22.
When this chapter was finished in May 2004, the MOU between the Indonesian and Malaysian governments on the procedures of recruitment regulations had been signed on 10 May 2004, 18 months after the Nunukan tragedy. Yet, the content and the substance of the new regulation are far from what is urgently needed to protect the basic rights of the Indonesian migrant workers who mostly fall under the category of the so-called unskilled workers, particularly domestic workers.
- 23.
The failure of the Indonesian government in delivering sufficient protection to the thousands of desperate migrant workers and their families in Nunukan has become a public issue in the mass media and has galvanised the NGO community to strongly criticise the government’s handling of the matter. In an unprecedented move, several NGOs have decided to establish a coalition and take the Nunukan case to court. These NGOs have mobilised support from the public to sue the government under the so-called citizen lawsuit. The first court hearing was conducted on 31 March 2003 and was followed by a second hearing on 14 April 2003. According to Nursyahbani Katjasungkana, one of the lawyers and the chairwoman of the Women’s Coalition for Democracy and Justice, in an interview with the author, the aim of the action was basically to educate and to strengthen public awareness of their citizen rights and responsibilities so they could respond critically to any government policies and programs that in the past have always been overlooked and did not determine the peoples’ interests.
References
Adam, A. W. (1994). Pengiriman buruh migran Jawa ke Vietnam tahun 1900-an (Exporting Javanese Migrant workers to Vietnam in the 1900s) Sejarah, 5, 1–6.
Asiwaju, A. I. (1983). Borderlands research: A comparative perspective. El Paso: University of Texas.
Battistella, G. (2002). Workers in ASEAN, unauthorized migrants as global. Paper presented at the IUSSP Regional Population Conference on Southeast Asia’s Population in a Changing Asian Contexts, Chulalangkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand, 10–13 June.
Breman, J. (1990). Labour migration and rural transformation in colonial Asia. CASA, Amsterdam: Free University Press.
Breman, J. (1997). Menjinakkan sang kuli: Politik kolonial pada awal abad ke-20 (Taming the Coolie Beast). Jakarta: Pustaka Utama Grafiti dan KITLV.
Collins, D. (1985). Partitioned culture areas and smuggling: The hausa and the groundnut trade across Nigeria-Niger border from the mid-1930s to the mid-1970s. In A. I. Asiwaju (Ed.), Partitioned Africans: Ethnic Relations across Africa’s International Boundaries, 1884–1984 (pp. 195–221). London: C. Hurst.
Hadiz, V. (1997). Workers and the state in new order Indonesia. London, UK: Routledge.
Hardjosudarmo, S. (1965). Kebijaksanaan transmigrasi dalam rangka pembangunan masyarakat desa di Indonesia (Transmigration Policy in the Context of Rural Development in Indonesia). Jakarta: Bhratara.
Heeren, H. J. (1979). Transmigrasi di Indonesia (Transmigration in Indonesia). Yogyakarta: Gadjah Mada University Press.
Kartodirdjo, S. (1973). Protest movement in rural java: A study of agrarian unrest in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Singapore: Oxford University Press.
Kuntjorojakti, Dorodjatun. (1978). The political economy of development: The case study of Indonesia under the New Order Government. (Unpublished PhD thesis, University of California, Berkeley).
Legge, J. D. (1964). Indonesia. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall.
Martinez, O., J. (1994). Border people: Life and society in the U.S. Mexico borderland. Tucson: The University of Arizona Press.
Miyazaki, K. (2000, April). Javanese-Malay: Between adaptation and alienation. Soujourn Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia, 15(1), 76–99.
Miyazaki, K. (1998). Culture moves: Contemporary migration in Southeast Asia. Keynote Speech (2) at the Symposium on Population Movement in Southeast Asia: Changing Identities and Strategies for Survival. National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka, Japan: 17–19 September.
Nitisastro, W. (1970). Population trends in Indonesia. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Piper, N., & Uhlin, A. (2002). Transnational advocacy networks and the issue of female labour migration and trafficking in east and Southeast Asia: A general analysis of opportunities and obstacles. Asia Pacific Migration Journal, 11(2), 171–196.
Smith, A. D. (1981). The ethnic revival in the modern world. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Spaan, E. (1994). Taikongs and Calos: The role of middlemen and brokers in Javanese international migration. International Migration Review, 28(1), 93–113.
Suparlan, P. (1995) The Javanese in Suriname: Ethnicity in an ethnically plural society. Monograph Series, Programme for Southeast Asian Studies, Arizona State University.
Thompson, V. (1947). Labor problems in Southeast Asia. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Tirtosudarmo. (1996). The Politics of international migration in Southeast Asia: The case of Indonesian illegal workers in Malaysia. Paper presented at the Regional Workshop on Movement of Peoples within and from the East and Southeast Asian region: Trends, Causes and Consequences and Policy Measures, organised by Southeast Asian Studies Program, Indonesian Institute of Sciences, Jakarta, 5–6 June.
Tirtosudarmo. (1997, October). Economic development, migration, and ethnic conflict in Indonesia: A preliminary observation. Soujourn, 12(2), 293–328.
Vredenbreght, J. (1964). ‘Bawean Migrations’, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land-en Volkenkunde, No. 120, pp. 109–139.
Wertheim, W. F. (1959, March). Sociological aspects of inter-islands in Indonesia. Population Studies, 7(3), 184–120.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Tirtosudarmo, R. (2018). Cross-Border Migration and the 2002 Nunukan Tragedy. In: The Politics of Migration in Indonesia and Beyond. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-9032-5_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-9032-5_8
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-10-9031-8
Online ISBN: 978-981-10-9032-5
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)