Jakarta. Indonesia revealed Thursday that it had helped its citizens overseas reclaim millions of American dollars worth of unpaid wages and insurance throughout 2024.

Many Indonesians choose to work abroad, but not a few of them suffer wage abuses. They struggle with delayed payment, and some do not even get paid at all. The Foreign Affairs Ministry has been assisting Indonesians abroad to recover their financial rights, including their wages. Throughout 2024, the ministry reclaimed a total of Rp 212 billion or approximately $13 million worth of unpaid wages, insurance, compensation, among others. Data shows that 23.6 percent of those recovered money were unpaid wages. Some 22.1 percent were compensation, followed by insurance at 13.9 percent. 

“So we managed to help our citizens recover Rp 212 billion worth of financial rights in 2024, marking an increase from Rp 94 billion reclaimed the previous year,” Vice Foreign Affairs Minister Arrmanatha Nasir told reporters in Jakarta.

Judha Nugraha, the ministry’s director for citizen protection, said that the unpaid wage cases were most likely concentrated in Southeast Asia and the Middle East, citing that most Indonesians working abroad were in these two regions. Judha, however, did not say which country saw the most salary abuses against Indonesians. 

About 55,984 of 62,120 of the so-called general cases also got resolved in 2024. The term “general cases” refers to problems commonly encountered by Indonesians abroad such as visa misuse and overstays, and does not include human trafficking and emergencies (i.e. armed conflicts or disasters). Around 23.3 percent of the resolved general cases are related to employment, according to the senior diplomats.

The Migrant Worker Protection Ministry reported that it had sent 295,439 Indonesians to work abroad throughout last year. About 33.7 percent of those migrant workers become housemaids, while some 17.5 percent are caregivers. Some 53,608 individuals traveled to Hong Kong, making it the most popular destination for migrant workers that year. But many Indonesians still prefer illegal routes. There are a whopping 5.4 million illegal migrant workers from Indonesia.