ABSTRACT
This chapter takes up two case studies of female labour migration in contemporary Indonesia: Torajan women from the interior of Sulawesi to the coastal cities and Indonesian (mostly Javanese) women to the Middle East (principally Saudi Arabia). It examines conditions of domestic service using data collected from interviews with, and observations of, a number of young women working as domestic servants in Ujung Pandang, the provincial capital of South Sulawesi. In recent years in Indonesia, some public concern has developed about the working conditions of the growing number of Indonesian women being recruited as domestic servants to the Middle East. Cultural credos about male responsibility to protect female honour are not adhered to in the case of the Indonesian domestic workers abroad, whereas they do appear to influence the way female servants are treated at home. In internal migration, Indonesian women obviously benefit from regional and familial networks as well as the ‘familial’ mode of domestic work.
