The NGO Migrant CARE expressed its concerns over the controversial verdict of a Malaysian court, which shortened the jail sentence of a Malaysian employer charged with abusing an Indonesian housekeeper in 2004.
The NGO Migrant CARE expressed its concerns over the controversial verdict of a
Malaysian court, which shortened the jail sentence of a Malaysian employer
charged with abusing an Indonesian housekeeper in 2004.

"The
reduction in the jail sentence is an indication of discriminative court
practises in Malaysia and the impunity of Malaysian employers. The
Malaysian Court of Appeal has no sense of justice", said the
organisation's policy analyst Wahyu Susilo on 4 December 2009, in an
interview with the Jakarta Post. He added that Migrant CARE also
regretted the government's silence during the trial. This gave the
impression that the government paid no attention to the protection of
Indonesian citizens overseas.

The court ruling was made only weeks after the
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono met with his Malaysian counterpart
in Kuala Lumpur, who pledged to provide better protection for
Indonesian migrant workers. Yudhoyono made the visit after three
Indonesian migrant workers were tortured to death by their Malaysian
employers over the past five months.

The two countries' joint team is still negotiating
labor standards and the protection of migrant workers in the country.
As reported by Associated Press on 4 December, the
Malaysian court cut the jail term of the employer who was convicted of burning
her Indonesian domestic worker with an iron, from 18 to 12 years because it was her
first offense.