JAKARTA — Every minute, around the world, there are incidents of flagrant discrimination in the workplace against women, persons with HIV/AIDS, members of ethnic groups, the elderly and others, says the International Labour Organisation (ILO) in a report released in May.

Encouraged by progress made so far, Indonesia will intensify its efforts against people trafficking to repair its poor record as well as to avoid sanctions from the international community, says Ratna Tjaja, the deputy in charge of the quality of women's lives at the Office of the State Minister for Women's Empowerment.

Ratna said that the government and the House must now speed up the deliberation of the bill on the trafficking of women and children to provide a legal basis for the ongoing fight against trafficking.

An estimated 230,000 Indonesian women and children have been trafficked from their home villages in Java, Sumatra, West Nusa Tenggara and Sulawesi to be employed as sex workers and cheap labor in urban areas at home and the sex trade overseas.

The government has recently brought home more than 300 women who were employed as sex workers in Saudi Arabia and Malaysia.

In its third annual 'Trafficking in Persons Report' released on Jun. 11, the U.S. State Department moved Indonesia out of the so-called "Tier 3" group of countries, inclusion in which can lead to sanctions, into the "Tier 2" group. The report said that Indonesia had made, to some extent, improvements and progress in its battle against people trafficking. (The Jakarta Post)

Ignore Pre-departure Orientation at Your Own Risk

MANILA — Many overseas Filipino workers ignore the pre-departure orientation seminars on HIV/AIDS and engage in behaviour that increases their chance of infection.

A member of the Positive Action Foundation of the Philippines Inc., a group of Filipinos living with HIV/AIDS, said at a media workshop that some workers listen when people living with HIV/AIDS give personal testimonies. But they do not take AIDS lectures seriously during seminars sponsored by the the government's Philippine Overseas Employment Administration and Overseas Workers' Welfare Administration, and manning agencies. As a result, they miss out on crucial information.

Records show that as of April 2003, the number of Filipinos living with HIV/AIDS is 1,866 since January 1984. (The Manila Times)

Little Interest in Leaving UAE

ABU DHABI — As the government's general amnesty drew to a close at the end of May, Asian missions reported no major last-minute rush of applicants seeking to exit the UAE.

The Sri Lankan Embassy revealed that the response was really poor. "At the outset, we had hoped that at least 6,000 to 8,000 people would benefit from the amnesty in the last one month following the extension, but there has been no significant rise. It appears that the remaining undocumented workers have simply decided not to leave the country," said the embassy minister in-charge of amnesty affairs.

According to Mahfud Islam Chowdhury, second secretary at the Bangladesh Embassy, there have been approximately 5,660 amnesty seekers, who have collected their outpasses from the mission, which were poor compared to initial estimates of about 10,000 undocumented Bangladeshis.

Chowdhury said the poor response was due to the fact that most of the Bangladeshi undocumented expatriates were extremely poor, and were trying to recover the exorbitant amounts they had paid to their sponsors when they first took up jobs in the country.

According to Achmad Dahlan, Indonesian Head of Mission for Cultural Affairs, about 550 Indonesians have collected outpasses and exited the country so far, with an additional 100 from the Indonesian Consulate General in Dubai. Most of the undocumented aliens were domestic and unskilled workers.

"Only a 'couple of hundreds' of Indians undocumented in the country have used the offer of general amnesty during its month-long period of extension. This is in line with our expectations, as we have reasons to believe that the vast majority of undocumented residents have already made use of the offer during the preceding four-month period," a spokesman for the Indian embassy said. (Khaleej Times)