Discussion Report Special Talking ASEAN: The Business Series

Transcription

1 July 2016 Discussion Report Special Talking ASEAN: The Business Series Skilled Labour Mobility in the ASEAN Economic Community: Progress and Challenges Thursday, 27 July 2017 BINUS University International, Jakarta

2 Introduction JAKARTA On Thursday, 27 July 2017, The Habibie Center hosted a Talking ASEAN: The Business Series dialogue entitled Skilled Labour Mobility in the ASEAN Economic Community: Progress and Challenges at BINUS University International, Jakarta. This edition of Talking ASEAN was moderated by Mr.Agustha Lumban Tobing (ASEAN Studies Program, The Habibie Center) and featured an expert panel of Ms Yuniyati Chuzaifah (Vice Chairperson, National Commission on Violence Against Women/Komnas Perempuan), Dr. Vishnu Juwono (Lecturer in Public Administration, Faculty of Administrative Sciences, University of Indonesia) Mr. I Gusti Putu Laksaguna (Secretary of the Tourism Business Certification Commission, Ministry of Tourism, Republic of Indonesia), Dr. Kun Wardana, (Director of UNI Apro ICTS) and Ms. Mega Irena (Assistant Director/Head, Labour and Civil Service Division, Human Development Directorate, ASEAN-Socio-Cultural Community Department, ASEAN Secretariat). The objectives of this conference were to: (a) discuss the recent developments regarding skilled labour mobility in ASEAN; (b) discuss changes, if any, of the structure of foreign labour markets in ASEAN Member States after two years of ASEAN Economic Community implementation; (c) identify current changes in institutional and regulatory frameworks in both national and regional level to better facilitate skilled labour mobility of in the region; and (d) facilitate discussion critical in advancing further reform efforts to deepen and widen labour mobility across the region. This discussion report summarizes the key points of each speaker, as well as the question and answer session that followed. Recommendation Among the key recommendations that emerged from this particular Talking ASEAN dialogue were: ASEAN Member States should pay special attention to gender issues when it comes to the protection of labour rights, especially given that developments in labour mobility is moving at a faster rate than in the area of human rights, which has the potential to pose threats to the safety, freedom and opportunities of migrant workers, especially women. ASEAN should push Member States to ratify the UN convention regarding protection of migrant workers and families, as well as develop a regional level convention that mutually reinforces existing bilateral agreements and MOUs. ASEAN Member States should address existing challenges in the implementation of the current 8 MRAs especially the gap between ASEAN-wide MRA licensing regimes due to vested interest in government and professional association. 2 Introduction - Discussion Report Talking ASEAN

3 Presentation

4 Mr. I Gusti Putu Laksaguna Secretary of the Tourism Business Certification Commission, Ministry of Tourism, Republic of Indonesia) Responsible for monitoring the implementation of MRA in Tourism. The first to speak was Mr. I Gusti Putu Laksaguna. He began his presentation with an introduction on the ASEAN Mutual Recognition Arrangement (MRA) on Tourism Professionals, which was signed by ASEAN member states in Thailand on the 9 th of November Its main objectives are to facilitate mobility of Tourism Professionals, exchange information on best practices in competency-based education and training, and provide opportunities for cooperation and capacity building across the ASEAN member states. The tourism profession is considered as unregulated work, meaning that it is an unlicensed occupation. Tourism Professionals could greatly benefit from the MRA by enhancing conformity with competency-based training and education, better recognize skills in both the national and regional level, improve the quality of tourism human resources where graduates would be ready to work in the industry, as well as to enhance the quality of tourism services. Regarding the eligibility of foreign Tourism Professionals, the MRA would give better regional recognition of the professionals qualifications in other ASEAN member states, given the provision of a valid tourism competency certificate in a specific tourism job title specified by the ASEAN Common Competency Standard for Tourism Professional (ACCSTP), as issued by the Tourism Professional Certification Board (TPCB) in an ASEAN Member State. of competence. Mr. Laksaguna explained the 5 levels of qualifications outlined in the RQFSRS (Regional Qualification Framework and Skills Recognition System) in the tourism sector and how each title within the profession requires a specific degree of certification from the basic line of staff requiring a minimum of a certificate II qualification, to certificate III and IV qualification and to the higher regarded titles requiring a Diploma and Advanced Diploma certification. Another aspect of the framework Mr Laksaguna highlighted was the Schematic Outline of ASEAN MRA on Tourism Professional Mechanism and how it is providing better ways to seek opportunities for tourism professions within the region. The framework conjoins resources from the ASEAN Member States and allows the professionals to present themselves, receive opportunities and make use of the information available to them from the pool of resources that has been gathered by the ASEAN Tourism Professional RegistrationSystem (ATPRS). Mr. Laksaguna ended his presentation by mentioning that the Ministry of Tourism has already completed certifying 29,398 professionals, already fulfilling 45.22% of its 65,000 tourism professionals that it aims to certify by the end of Although this certificate provides the benefits of eligibility to work in a host country, the condition within the MRA that states the labour force will remain subject to the prevailing domestic laws and regulations of the respective country may pose as a major challenge/ deliberating factor for the labour force itself if the laws in the host country are still underdeveloped and require further work to be done. There are currently 32 job titles recognized in the ACCSTP in the Hotel & Tourism Service, with each job title possessing its own necessary unit of levels 4 Presentation - Discussion Report Talking ASEAN

5 Ms. Yuniyanti Chuzaifah Vice Chairperson, National Commission on Violence Against Women/Komnas Perempuan The second speaker in the panel was Ms. Yuniyati Chuzaifah. She brought insight from the human rights perspective to the discussion and talked about the issues women face in the skilled labour industry. The presentation delved into the critical points of view regarding labour mobility and the human rights factors that are entrenched in it. She specifically pointed out the roles of gender and gender bias between skilled and unskilled labour, formal and informal labour, domestic and public labour, masculine-feminine labour, as well as mobility and intellectual property rights. She raised her concern regarding the significance that label holds in aiding or hindering the improvement of occupational images. For example, work in the domestic sphere at the local level (domestic workers) are still regarded as informal, unskilled workers. This is vital when we are to look at economic scenes and this also links to the issue of masculine-feminine occupational roles. Ms. Yuni classified the skills women have in societies into two categories; skilled 1 & skilled 2 workers. The list of Skilled 1 occupations being those seemingly natural to feminine traits such as caregiver, cook, house keeper, gardener, doing the laundry and skilled 2 occupations being architecture, accountant, lawyer, activist, lecturer, researcher, etc. She explained how current situations in the residing country of the individual are a leading factor in contributing to gender migration. Economic situation, the desire to escape from violent in the region (domestic, sexual), and desire to avoid social pressure (marriage, orientation etc. become more accepted and have a greater sense of freedom, safety, opportunity and mobility) becomes factors that women put into great consideration when deciding to migrate to other countries. Ms. Yuni highlighted how ASEAN Policy- Cooperation on Economy, Tourism, Security, Culture provides both opportunities but also poses vulnerability for women. She used the example of ASEAN s promotion of tourism, advertising activities such as nightlife and cruise-rides, which can be interpreted to have different connotations from the gender perspective, condescending the place of women. the protection of human rights and women s rights in ASEAN.The progress of labour mobility is moving at a faster rate than the progress of human rights, and this is a major concern as it can lead to threats in safety, freedom, and opportunity of these women migrant workers. The political conditions and historical trajectory of the countries must also be dealt with to overcome the tendency of having an overly increased number of labour migration. Policy makers focusing on protecting the rights of women are listening to the victims of this abuse of women s rights to build better policies. Skilled women migrant workers have experienced de-skilling and lowering of positions, multiple forms of discrimination, class-bias and prejudice, difficulties in immigration (policies), less/more limited social network, less freedom of expression and supremacy of developed and less-developed countries. Reported cases including drug trafficking, sexual violence and impunity as well as exploitation of migrant workers have also happened through the gate of skilled labour. Ms. Yuni mentioned several instruments available in the global and regional level working to overcome these problems. In the UN, there is already global collaboration with a UN global compact about practical guidance on how to empower women in the workplace, and this is a step that aims to discuss and promote principles to aid women and strengthen their positions through better policy making protecting their rights in the workplace and placing greater measures to achieve this progress. Policy makers are also behind in pace when it comes to Presentation - Discussion Report Talking ASEAN 5

6 Ms. Mega Irena Assistant Director/Head, Social Welfare, Women, Labour & Migrant Workers Division, Socio-Cultural Cooperation Directorate, ASEAN- Socio-Cultural Community Department, ASEAN Secretariat The third speaker was Ms. Mega Irena. She began by detailing the population and economic situation in the ASEAN region. ASEAN currently accommodates over 630 million people with more than 50% of the number being under 30 years old, signifying a large potential for untapped human resources. ASEAN s GDP is also growing at a fast growth with its combined economy being the 3 rd largest in Asia and 7 th largest in the world in the year 2014, whilst FDI continues to grow despite the global economic slowdown in However, amidst its robust economic growth, the majority of labour migration within ASEAN is still of low-skilled labour (30% of total people migrate to other countries). On the topic of the movement of migrant workers in ASEAN, there is a clear dichotomy in the flow of migration. In the context of skilled labour mobility, the economic agenda that is most often addressed is free movement of professionals. This is despite the fact that professionals only constitute less than 1% of the workforce in the region, so that the majority of the workforce, including those migrating, are medium-lower skilled. Ms. Mega also highlighted the development gap across countries in ASEAN. In member states, such as Singapore or Brunei the GDP per capita is approximately USD 56,000 and USD 41,000 respctively and comparable to the GDP per capita of the US Canada or NZ. On the other side of thespectrum Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos have a GDP per capita of around USD /.This situation makes a very conducive environment for migration as people living in poverty would likely be attracted to the higher wages provided in the more developed member states, which in turn would benefit as they may require people willing to fill jobs requiring less skills due to their country s advanced education levels. Ms. Mega also raised the importance of having institutions that aim to protect the rights of vulnerable workers in the region. Ms. Mega went on to note that there are 4 key aspects of labour mobility; (1) Skill Development, (2) Skill Recognition, (3) Protection and Promotion of the Rights, and (4) Social Protection. On addressing the importance of skill development, Ms. Mega explained that if the AEC is managed properly within the next decade, it will make way for about 14 million new job opportunities, and create a shift of employment structure. It is predicted that through ASEAN s further industrialization and economic growth, the currently dominating agriculture sector will shift to the manufacturing (secondary) sector; this means that there will be a greater need for graduates that are ready to meet that job market and greater need for industries to improve vocational training, adjusting their curriculum to meet the relevant industrial needs. On Skill Recognition, the current Mutual Recognition Arrangements covers 8 occupational areas. However, some occupations (tourism engineer accountancy architecture) are more advanced than others in the way they reached agreements to recognize qualifications of the professionals in the ASEAN member states. The ASEAN Qualification Reference Framework (AQRF) adopted in 2015 by the ASEAN economic, education and labour ministers intended to enable comparisons of qualification across ASEAN member states given the existing different national qualifications. It will help each country determine the level of certification incoming labour migrants have in their country with the certification they received from their respective country. Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines and Thailand have already committed to it. This was said to complement the MRAs and aids in the more technical aspects of freer labour migration. The AQRF also assures the quality of certificates of other systems and requires quality assurance which ASEAN also has guiding principles on how to recognize these qualities of certification from different countries; ASEAN is currently building the framework in trying to recognize skills of workers so that through such recognition there can be better career development, recognition of skills through appropriate remuneration, etc. Regarding the rights of lower skilled labour, only 2 ASEAN states have ratified the UN convention regarding protection of migrant workers and families (Indonesia and the Philippines, while Cambodia is only a signatory and yet to ratify the convention). Although there are bilateral agreements and MOUs already underway, mutually reinforcing the convention of protection of migrant workers and families, ASEAN still requires a 4 Presentation - Discussion Report Talking ASEAN

7 document to complement the convention at the regional level. Though there has been delays in the regional level of the finalization and adoption of this instrument to protect and promote the rights of migrant workers, this year ASEAN is aiming to complete the establishment of the document to get member states committed to fulfil (2) balanced obligations between sending and receiving states, (2) obligation of government to improve recruitment system, orientation program, pre-departure and post arrival, (3) protection of the workforce in terms of assistance of labour attaché and legal recourse for any complaints, and (4) protection in terms of clear contract with standards and no manipulation; salary-wise, etc. ASEAN already has a regional framework to strengthen social protection, one of commitments being the commitment to study technical aspects on the transferability and portability of social security and social benefits of migrant workers from one country to another (portability problem, etc.). ASEAN is still in the early stages of ensuring this, because the regulations in one country may differ to others and there is aportability problem that has to be overcome in between that. In the end, people move based on rational choice. Security in all fields is a must, hence why movement of high-skilled workers is still low. With further economic progression, there is hope this can change so there can be safer migration happening within and in between the regions. Presentation - Discussion Report Talking ASEAN 5

8 Dr. Kun Wardana Director of UNI Apro ICTS The fourth to speak was Dr. Kun Wardana, who presented his views from a trade union perspective and used a a non-confrontational, social dialogue approach. He clarified how unions comprise of both high and low-skilled workers and were not merely low-skilled labour. Dr. Wardana presented one of the union s scheme to overcome the challenge of protecting labour migrant workers. He explained the UNI Passport for union members where they can report or consult any problems they face with the representative of the union in the said country (UNI counts 20 million members in 152 countries). He also discussed the Global Framework Agreement, an instrument to aid in anticipating and overcoming problems of different labour laws among different countries. This framework aims to aid in creating fair adjustments to the labour workers seeking to migrate. 52 multinational companies have signed the Agreement, agreeing to create efforts to overcome this problem. The agreement holds basic trade union rights and principles that the signatories have to adhere to such as setting fixed working hours, occupational health & safety standards, etc. UNI encourages Social Dialogue between its members and affiliates and is committed to educate the public and provide better alternatives to solving problems and disagreements they may have with their employers. Most often, problems in the workplace are a result of having no room for communication, and the inability of such workers to properly negotiate for themselves leads to violent and uncivilized ways of protest to voice their concerns. Dr. Wardana addressed common challenges of the UNI with labour migration and specifically highlighted the skillchallenges workers face due to disruptive technology. Inversely, in UNI the main problem is flexibility regarding place and time of work which are creating new types of employment such as outsourcing, job sharing and having one worker have several employers. Jobs on demand is also a rising problem the UNI is facing, having temporal hiring for specific needs within a specific timeframe. Flexible employment is now regarded as constants in the trade unions. Job displacement due to technological developments can reach up to 50% of dismissal of the workforce, thus development of technology is a major concern for the union. The UNI also encourages Tripartism a social dialogue including the Government, Businesses & Industries, and Workers. In most cases, the labour force is usually unaware of the challenges of the oncoming 4 th industrial revolution, ASEAN economic community, and other political issues contributing to the challenge of better labour. This is why UNI always encourages social dialogue, to inform the labour force of these challenges and how they are following up on overcoming those challenges and with the dialogue including the 3 parties, it would be mutually beneficial to the parties to gain perspective directly from the respective party. Another thing UNI encourages is the need of having a Sectorial Tripartite as it is still unfamiliar to the people in ASEAN. Though there is currently a national tripartite, it is too broad and global in regard to discussing certain occupational issues. More specified information is needed for certain discussions regarding occupations because the issues in each sector differs from one another, therefore would need to be more specifically catered to its occupation. UNI are also discussing how to attain higher standards for occupational safety & healthand how to educate the public on these though thegovernment, the ministry of manpower and discussions with unions and employers. In conclusion, he highlighted the importance of tightened coordination between Government, Industry, Trade Union and EducationInstitutions in order to better face and find solutions to the problems now andin the future. 4 Presentation - Discussion Report Talking ASEAN

9 Dr. Vishnu Juwono Lecturer in Public Administration, Faculty of Administrative Sciences, University of Indonesia Dr. Vishnu Juwono was the last to speak, bringing in insight from the International Affairs perspective. He began by introducing the ASEAN Migration Profile, showing ASEAN s net exporters and importers as well as statistics on intra-asean migration. In 2013, 97% of the 6.5 million intra-asean migrants are merely circulated between 3 countries: Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore. He discussed employment rates in the different ASEAN member states and compared the levels of low-skilled to high-skilled workers within each country. There are generally more low-skilled labour migrants compared to high-skilled migrants as those high-skilled workers would have to compete with professional workers from beyond the ASEAN region such as China, India and the US. implementation. These include the improvement of quality and accessibility of information in the recognition procedure, increased private sector involvement to identify industrial needs for skilled labour, empower the ASEAN Secretary General s monitoring role, mobilizing politicalsupport as well as increase theawareness on the importance and benefit of AEC and MRA, and create an informal progressive coalition consisting ofgovernment officials, NGO activists, the private sector,and business associations in pushing for theimplementation of MRA. In this process, it isimportant to show that there is aprogress and benefit in the MRA implementation. Therefore, there should be a sustained effort so that the benefit of skilled-labour mobility can be felt notjust at the regional, but also national and even local level. Going on to discuss the components of the AEC and its free flow for skills and labour; the AEC is a market of over 600 million consumers with a GDP of USD 3 Trillion. According to the ADB and ILO, the AEC could lift aggregate output as much as 7% and generate 14 million jobs by This shows very high potential trade benefits for ASEAN, provided the AEC is implemented successfully.though the AEC envisions freer movement of skilled labour to help bridge the development gap, the ASEAN blueprint limits the promotion of labour mobility to skilled labour where the majority is low-skilled labour. There is also a lot of uncertainty in terms of labour movement, still emphasizing on prevailing regulations of the receiving country. Agreements to better facilitate labour mobility in ASEAN include ratification of the MRAs in 8 occupations. However, there are still challenges in implementing the MRA such as certain legal and constitutional restriction that still exists within each country.there is a gap between ASEAN-wide MRA licensing regimes due to vested interest in government and professionalassociation. Also, due to politicaland public support to drive the process there is a great lack of awareness among ASEAN members on the AEC & MRA itself. Short term measures have been placed by ASEAN to aid in the progress and attaining the benefit of the MRA Presentation - Discussion Report Talking ASEAN 5

10 QUESTION AND ANSWER

11 Comment No. 1 What are you views on using the MRA in helping Indonesia s labour mobility? Do you think it is moving it towards a more positive light and helping these migrant workers? Dr. Vishnu: Promoting liberalization of the labour force is not a popular agenda in any political campaign. However, promotion of knowledge, exposure, etc. will help companies compete and improve individual skills in the political campaigns in order to help push for the economic agenda. In terms of the high skilled labour, it does help because for less developed countries, they could gain a transfer of knowledge from the more developed country, and for the developed country they ll gain the best talent from the incoming countries wanting to fill in the more unpopular jobs with decent/ competitive prices.economic-wise, it will also be very beneficial, but the challenges is communicating these mutual benefits and persuading the less developed country of these mutual benefits. Ms. Mega: The MRA does not guarantee mobility for workers, it is an enabling tool to recognize qualifications of graduates and workers from one country to another, aiding in the recognition of qualification to be more easily hired by different countries increasing their chance of labour mobility. This does not and cannot guarantee mobility due to a lot of factors, including unspoken factors such as adhering to stereotypes; qualification barriers such as language, etc. There are levels of protectionism that is unavoidable in any country in the ASEAN region. Comment No. 2 (1) What is the difference between the ASEAN declaration of protection of migrant workers and the UN declaration of human rights [UNHR policy on protecting labour workers]? Is it more progressive, cover more specific ASEAN needs, etc.? What are the barriers keeping the more developed countries from signing/ratifying this document. (2) What is the UNI involvement on the protection of Indonesia s low skilled workers right now? (3) Movement of persons should we extend the permit of the workers so that they can invest in more skills in the workplace?- Ms. Mega: (1) ASEANdeclaration of human rights is the regional commitment anchored to UNHRcovering human rights, political economic and social cultural sphere, while the instrument of migrant workers covers the rights of workers and the obligation of sending & receiving states the latter is about labour migrant workers protection anchored to labour laws.sending and receiving states have their own interests, sending states (i.e. Indonesia) want maximum benefits and rights being protected. Receiving states have concerns such as on national security, local employment, competition, etc. There are a lot of dimensions in the process of negotiation towards the adoption of the instrument. It has not been decided on whether it would be legally binding. Aside from that, ASEAN Secretariat also only has limited power and mandates as it facilitates negotiations and take notes on the discussions. Ms. Yuni: (1)Regarding the human rights instruments, the main issue in the ASEAN in the convention of migrant workers is that that all human beings must be protected regardless of their legal documented status as it is a matter human rights, ASEAN often focuses on the protection of their own citizens, therefore there is a fragmentation of the implementation of human rights implementation. The second issue is related to the withholding of documents by employers of the employee s legal documents, it should belong to the owner (worker), but in the working mechanism, the employer often has the right to hold the document. The third issue is regarding holidays where as a migrant worker, how long and how far they are allowed to go on holiday also then becomes an issue. Q&A - Discussion Report Talking ASEAN 9

12 Comment No. 3 Who will finance the training of the labour workers that are required to gain eligibility in the MRA? And who will be responsible for organizing it? Ms. Mega; Many AMS have looked at the example of Germany in regard to finding finance methods. There they have dual system where there is a curriculum on vocational training, adopting apprenticeship systems in collaboration with medium & large sized industries. This system is very beneficial as the knowledge workers gain would be very relevant to companies. But this culture still needs to be cultivated. And due to the pace of technological development, collaborations with industries is not a choice it is a must and we must find a practical way of collaboration between the industries, or we will be left behind. Mr. Putu: Referring to the hotel industry,2% of 10% of the service charge goes to the training and development of the employees and the Ministry of Tourism also set aside a budget to enhance the quality of the tourism profession Dr. Kun: Government provide funding for education, industries support the funding of skill upgrading, and the union itself supports the financing of the development of skill of its members through the membership fees that it collects. The urgent need to have a tripartite dialogue would also help overcome this because it is not merely singular problems coming from above; if the 3 parties (education) are able to enter in this dialogue, a good new scheme for the (better) implementation and idea for funding. Ms. Yuni:Bringing in the example of the Philippines, they were able to reshape the quality of lower-skilled labour into skilled-labour by having pre-departure orientation, talking the low-skilled labour workforce into believing that they are more skilled and have a bigger responsibility in society, thus ensuring better quality of work, etc. in the workplace. Comment No. 4 Is there a problem of Brain Drain & Brain Gain in Indonesia? i.e. workers fleeing and Indonesia losing its talent? Dr. Vishnu: I wouldn t worry about the brain drain especially if the brain gain will benefit us as a country. Indonesians have a high sense of nationalism, and in the economic perspective, the brain drain that we will initially lose would be compensated by the remittance that the returning Indonesians will bring to the country later on. Taking an example of Bali tourism, there is also a lot of good quality Bali tourist experts regeneration is working very well. Outflow will not affect the quality of tourism service because it has achieved the level of high standard. Mr. Putu:There is an issue regarding that, especially when tourism professions went to Saudi Arabia, etc. but in my point of view, it is not a major problem. The workers would not stay forever they would eventually come back gaining more experience, being a greater asset such asthe expertise they receive when they return back to Indonesia. Ms. Yuni: Coming from a human rights perspective, Indonesian women have largely been told to work abroad due to issues regarding integrity of the individuals, especially due to unstable political situations within the country. 10 Q&A - Discussion Report Talking ASEAN

13 Comment No. 5 Concerns the feasibility of the mobility on social insurance system. Indonesia hasn t even established full national coverage of the national insurance, surely to try and pursue a mobilized regional insurance would be an administrative nightmare. Ms. Mega:We are still very far from such portability. However, there has been attempts at the bilateral level through the signing of MOUs. There is the challenge of un-universalized healthcare system in Indonesia, but improvements have been seen through Kartu Sehat and hopefully can be even better improved over time. As domestic workers are mostly informal workers; they usually do not have a formal contract and is usually by verbal agreements, thus they do not obtain the benefits of insurance and become very vulnerable to human rights abuses. We still do not have the kind of legal protection, so if we want to move towards transferability of social insurance, medical benefits and social pension, we have to improve the system in our country to be in par and allow such kinds of transferability Dr. Kun:In ASEAN countries,there are different policies concerning the mobility of the social insurance system. Even in neighbouring countries, certain basic core standards required have not been ratified. This is important for the trade unions as if the standards and level playing field is different, the levels of protection of the workers itself will also differ from one country to another. This is why the trade unions (including UNI) promotes one ASEAN agreement. It is a difficult task, but we are trying to make a campaign on this. Currently working on the first stage, limited to basic core labour standards (i.e. freedom of association and raise agreements, etc. hoping that by raising and agreeing to balancing the standards, we hope to be able to level out the playing field. Comment No. 5 Similarities and differences of certain occupations when it moves outside the domestic sphere (i.e. cooks at home vs. chef). Demand for informal sector is higher than those of formal sector, and the efforts for managing skilled labour that ASEAN puts in place is quite significant. But are there similar efforts that ASEAN puts in place when it comes to managing the informal sector? What are the similarities and differences of attempt to managing labourwhen it comes from regional to domestic sphere in this manner? Has KOMNAS Perempuandone any study in the ASEAN Region that quantifies the roles of those who work in the informal sector regarding their contribution to the economic development of the countries they work in? Ms. Mega:Looking at it from the informal employment side, The majority of workers across ASEAN are in informal employment (mostly agriculture). We have to admit there is a problem surrounding not having contract which can lead to lack of protection; We have to formalize the jobs, ensuring their rights and entitlements are protected by the law and not merely gentlemen agreements without clear contract that the agreements will be fulfilled. Ms. Yuni:There has not any conducted research regarding women in the formal sector, but we have documented based on reported cases that behind professionals, they have professionals of domestic workers. If the policies of domestic workers abroad or in Indonesia invites the domestication of women, when they don t have domestic workers/pampered system in the private sphere, they will bring back women to work at home; a circular impact of professional & unprofessional workers as well as the contribution of domestic and formal workers in Indonesia. Q&A - Discussion Report Talking ASEAN 11

14 Comment No. 7 What do you think institutions in Indonesia can do to better educate lower-skilled citizens, students and the public on protectionism, legal rights & systems when it comes to labour and what can individuals do to learn about it and help themselves? Ms. Mega:The issue is not about opportunities available abroad for graduates after university, because not all graduates would seek work abroad. The issue is to promote work and opportunities available in the countries. These opportunities are influenced by investments within the country and macroeconomic growth. There should be a bigger investment by the government to ensure investments continue to grow to open up more job opportunities. Ms. Yuni: Other than legal rights and systems for protection purposes for women, the union, the network and the circle is vital to their protection. There have been seen to be more cases and threats of violence, drug trafficking, abuse, where there is little to no connection of the women labour workers to the union, network, or the circle. Aside from this, Ms. Yuni also stressed the importance ofsolidarity among the diaspora community. Relevance must be addressed through collaboration with industries to know what is relevant and demanded in the job market, and though apprenticeships, graduates would have the soft skills required and relevant to the current hits in the job market. Internships and apprenticeships would also prepare graduates for work in reality, and it would also aid in the better facilitation of the matching of labour demand and supply. 10 Q&A - Discussion Report Talking ASEAN

15 ABOUT ASEAN STUDIES PROGRAM The ASEAN Studies Program was established on February 24, 2010, to become a center of excellence on ASEAN related issues, which can assist in the development of the ASEAN Community by The Habibie Center through its ASEAN Studies Program, alongside other institutions working towards the same goal, hopes to contribute to the realization of a more people-oriented ASEAN that puts a high value on democracy and human rights. The objective of the ASEAN Studies Program is not merely only to conduct research and discussion within academic and government circles, but also to strengthen public awareness by forming a strong network of civil society in the region that will be able to help spread the ASEAN message. With the establishment of ASEAN Studies Program, The Habibie Center aims to play its part within our capabilities to the ASEAN regional development. ABOUT TALKING ASEAN Talking ASEAN is a monthly public dialogue held at The Habibie Center in Jakarta. Covering a wide array of issues related to ASEAN, Talking ASEAN addresses topics of: Economic Integration, Socio-cultural, & Democracy, human rights and regional peace, among others. Featuring local and visiting experts, Talking ASEAN is one of a series of twelve dialogues regularly held each month and open to a target audience consisting of ASEAN officials, foreign ambassadors & diplomats, academics, university students, businesses, and the media. PROJECT SUPERVISOR: Rahimah Abdulrahim (Executive Director) & Hadi Kuntjara (Deputy Director for Operations) HEAD OF ASEAN STUDIES PROGRAM: A. Ibrahim Almuttaqi RESEARCHERS: Fina Astriana, Muhamad Arif, Askabea Fadhilla, Agustha Lumban Tobing, Hana Hanifah, Vierna Tasya Wensatama FINANCE & ADMINISTRATION: Mila Oktaviani LAYOUT & DESIGN: Rahma Simamora, Tongki Ari Wibowo ASEAN Studies Program - The Habibie Center The Habibie Center Building - Jl. Kemang Selatan No.98, Jakarta Tel: Fax: thc@habibiecenter.or.id