ER
THE COOL breeze from the Bikomi Valley blows gently over Kefamenanu, the capital of Timor Tengah Utara regency, East Nusa Tenggara. In the middle of a not-too-hot day, Regina Siki is busy at a wooden loom.
She weaves the threads, strand by strand, into a beautiful traditional cloth from Bumi Flobamora, another name for East Nusa Tenggara. The cloth, priced at IDR500,000 per sheet, will be sold to one of her neighbors who has ordered it in advance for attributes during a celebration. This will take about a week to complete.
Regina Siki explained while operating the loom provided by the Ministry of Social Affairs. Occasionally, the middle-aged woman has to stop weaving when a customer wants to shop at her vegetable stall. This has been my daily activity for the past year.
In addition to selling at the vegetable stall she built in 2012, Regina is currently involved in the creative economy by making East Nusa Tenggara’s typical woven cloth. Before 2012, Regina had never thought of making a living in her hometown like she does now.
Due to the lack of job opportunities for people with low education, the dream of becoming a migrant worker, especially in Malaysia, was common among the people of Kefamenanu. At that time, the lure of earning a lot of money as a migrant worker attracted Regina and her fellow residents.
Apparently, the promise of a high salary as a domestic helper in Malaysia was just a bluff of the labor brokers. Instead of earning a lot of money, Regina was treated inhumanely and her salary was withheld by her employer.
Even after two years of work, she received only IDR4 million. In fact, her total salary for two years as a domestic worker should have been no less than IDR27 million.
Regina’s employer deducted a large portion of her salary to cover her medical expenses as she was often in and out of the hospital.
She’s frequent illnesses were not without reason. How could it be that during the two years she worked in Penang, Malaysia, the mother of five children was given a bedroom without a mattress and small portions of food?
Unfortunately, Regina’s working hours were also uncertain. Regina was overwhelmed with thoughts after she could no longer bear the bad treatment from her employer and was overwhelmed by homesickness.
Finally, she decided to quit her job in Malaysia. She thought it was better to live a hard life in her hometown than to live a hard life in another country and be cheated by her employer.
Rise
After returning from Malaysia, Regina worked odd jobs with uncertain income. Eventually, she decided to open a vegetable stall with her remaining salary as a domestic worker in Malaysia and the rest of her savings.
Fortune began to smile on her. As more and more customers came, Regina’s sales from the vegetable stall continued to grow. With the income from the stall, she was able to send her five children to school.
Eleven years later, God’s grace again greeted Regina and her family through the Ministry of Social Welfare. She was selected as one of the beneficiaries of the Empowerment Program for Former Victims of Human Trafficking and Problematic Indonesian Migrant Workers, and received about Rp13 million in assistance.
She used the money to develop the stall and realize her old dream of becoming a weaver. Since her teenage years, Regina had a talent for weaving, but due to limited capital, she could not realize it as a business.
In addition to fulfilling her old dream, Regina also sent her two sons to college with the proceeds from the sale of her woven cloth.
With a similar story to Regina’s, Yudit Bana, 41, also started trying to realize his dream in his hometown after he decided to stop working as a migrant worker in Malaysia. It was not easy for him to make the transition from migrant worker to entrepreneur in North Central Timor.
Yudit had experienced ups and downs as a broiler farmer. His patience has not been in vain. It was only in 2023 that he received cash assistance of about Rp10 million from a similar program that Regina received from the Ministry of Social Affairs.
From the 100 chickens he raised, Yudit has turned the results into five harvests. In fact, from the last harvest, he saved for his child’s college tuition for a semester.
Another former migrant worker, Yohanis Nismeto, 38, had a different experience. His story of working in Malaysia for eight years ended with three months in jail.
He was angry because his passport and work visa had long expired because his recruitment agent had not renewed them. In fact, the agent’s obligation to help extend them had already been stated in his contract letter.
Fortunately for Yohanis, the Indonesian government opened its arms to him after he was released from a Malaysian prison.
The Ministry of Social Affairs picked him up and brought him home to East Nusa Tenggara, although he did not immediately return to his village in Amfoang, a region of the province that borders the Oekusi Ambenu district of Timor-Leste.
Upon arrival in East Nusa Tenggara, Yohanis was taken to the Ministry’s Rehabilitation and Training Center in Naibonat, Kupang Regency.
There, Yohanis was rehabilitated and trained in skills to help him get back on his feet after a dark period in Malaysia. From agricultural training and workshops to animal husbandry, he had been through it all for almost a month at the Ministry of Social Welfare’s vocational training center.
After striving to acquire several skills, Yohanis finally decided to choose chicken farming as a business to continue in his village. Yohanis prayed that his plans to raise chickens in Amfoang would be successful so that he would no longer have to travel abroad to earn money.
Rehabilitation
Through the Efata Kupang Center, the Ministry has been implementing the rehabilitation and protection program for 46 people who were former migrant workers, former victims of human trafficking, and people who used to work outside the province since 2023.
Muhammad Saibuddin, head of the Disaster Cluster Working Group at the Efata Kupang Center, said the beneficiaries were trained in various skills.
They were also provided with a certain amount of capital support based on the needs of their chosen business. After starting their businesses, the beneficiaries of the Ministry of Social Affairs program received support in running their businesses, with an evaluation of their progress conducted every three months.
The Efata Kupang Center officers will continue to provide suggestions to beneficiaries who are less successful in their chosen field to improve their business strategy or even retrain them to provide other more appropriate skills.
Due to their low level of education and lack of special skills, these former migrant workers who have returned to East Nusa Tenggara have the potential to return to other regions.
The former victims of human trafficking and problematic migrant workers must be able to succeed and be independent with new businesses in their hometowns.
Not only weaving hope, the struggle of the former victims and problematic migrant workers to rise again to become independent is also part of the effort to build their hometowns in East Nusa Tenggara and this country, Indonesia. [antaranews]
