REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, MATARAM -- The Director of Indonesian People Protection and Indonesian Legal Entity of Foreign Ministry Lalu Muhammad Iqbal said there were about 300 Indonesian workers being hosted in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He said most of them came from West Nusa Tenggara (NTB). 

Iqbal said after getting the report two weeks ago, he asked Indonesian Embassy to Saudi Arabia to investigate it. “There were 300 hundreds of people are being hosted. But, the information is still being investigated,” said him in Mataram, NTB, on Friday (March 31). 

A spreading issue said there were a number Indonesian people was tortured and killed. Foreign ministry investigated this issue, including the location of the corpses buried. 

Iqbal said the hosted people were illegal Indonesian workers. Therefore, Foreign Ministry could not monitor them as the legal ones. The institution realized their presence when the problems came.  

Also read: Many Indonesian nationals become victims of human trafficking: Foreign Ministry

Iqbal added that Foreign Ministry had known an Arabian company with mass recruitment pattern related to this case. It collected some data to undergo coordination with law enforcers in Saudi Arabia. 

This was not the first human trafficking case found in Saudi Arabia. Joint raids had ever been conducted by both governments. Indonesia and Saudi Arabia named the recent case a criminal act of human trafficking. “It strongly alleged as human trafficking,” said Iqbal. 

Foreign Ministry conducted strong effort to seek information about this case. All the Indonesian workers would be repatriated to Indonesia. 

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