REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA -- The Foreign Ministry will make every effort to better protect Indonesian migrant workers abroad in the next five years Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi said.

"The protection of Indonesian citizens including migrant workers and the provision of legal assistance will always be intensified," the minister said in an annual press briefing at the ministry here on Thursday (8/1).

Indonesia will only send migrant workers to countries which have national regulations which protect migrant workers, she pointed out.

"We will also send migrant workers to countries if they sign bilateral agreements with Indonesia to better protect our migrant workers," she added.

In addition, the ministry will also try to strengthen the protection of Indonesian migrant workers at a regional level, including encouraging the creation of an ASEAN legal instrument which will pursue non-discriminatory protection of migrant workers, she said.

"This is in line with ASEAN's vision to create ASEAN Community which care about one another," she said.

In the future, Indonesia's foreign diplomacy and policy must be able to provide a sense of security and protection to Indonesian citizens and legal entities abroad, she said.

She went on to say the ministry has integrated the database of Indonesian citizens abroad with the database of Indonesian migrant workers operated by the Agency for the Placement and Protection of Indonesian Migrant Workers (BNP2TKI).

"This way various problems facing Indonesian citizens abroad, 60 percent of them migrant workers, can hopefully be handled more properly and quickly in the future," she said.

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