RI URGED TO RATIFY UN CONVENTION ON MIGRANT WORKERS

Bandung, W Java, Feb 11 (ANTARA) - The ASEAN Human Rights Committee renewed Thursday its call for Indonesia to immediately ratify the UN convention on the protection of migrant workers and their families.

"Indonesian migrant workers have so far not received adequate protection so they have often been treated arbitrarily," Indonesian representative to the committee Rafendi Djamin said.

If Indonesia ratified the convention it would get much benefit in that and it could pressure the governments of the countries where Indonesian migrant workers were employed to ratify the convention, he said.

"We can argue with them. If all of us respect human rights and democracy they must ratify the UN convention too," he said.

Meanwhile, Roostiawati of the Directorate of Overseas Manpower Placement at the Manpower and Transmigration Ministry said the ministry was still analyzing the pluses and minuses of ratifying the convention.

"We cannot determine when we will ratify the convention because we must be careful," she said.

One of the considerations why Indonesia had not as yet ratified the convention was that none of the 42 countries employing Indonesian migrant workers had ratified it, she said.

"If we ratify it can we be sure that our migrant workers will be protected?" she asked.