#PercayaBersama: Our Indonesia Campaign on Access to Justice, Even After Returning Home.
Very few migrant workers returning to Indonesia know that they can seek justice after they reach home. The Percaya Bersama, or “Together We Believe” campaign, sought to begin raising awareness that claims for exploitation or abuse were not only possible but have been successful.
JWB partnered with public relations agencies, Cognito and Media Buffet to deliver a powerful video story on our client Nisa’s journey from abuse to justice.
The video and resulting media launch were a huge success. It reached over one million daily views via 17 news stories in the Indonesian media. Its wide online promotion reached over 200,000 viewers in a very short time. Best of all, the project generated more inquiries from workers and their families than before. With abuse on the rise for domestic workers during Covid-19, the Percaya Bersama campaign was a key component in letting those in need know that help was available.
The video depicts Nisa’s life as an Indonesian migrant domestic worker working in Singapore. Nisa suffered abuse, both physically and verbally, at the hands of her employer. She was isolated and not allowed to use a cellphone. After being bitten by the employer’s dog, she was forced to pay her own hospital bills. She decided to take her own life, but then found the courage to flee from her place of work to her friend’s place. From there, she reached out to the Humanitarian Organization for Migration Economics (HOME), a Singaporean front-line organisation, which made it possible for her to contact JWB. After fifteen months, she received compensation (which was seven times her monthly wage) despite having returned to Indonesia, and working in another country since the claim was made. The video is a tribute to justice prevailing and the protection of migrant domestic workers’ rights.
This short movie was directed by Sindy Febriyani and Alvian Eka Putra. The actor that played Nisa was Riri Silalahi. After careful consideration, the video shoot was moved to Bogor, West Java, because of the rising COVID-19 cases in Jakarta at the time. Afina Nurul Faizah and the JWB PR and Operations team spent three nights in a lodge which was turned into a mini studio. The campaign is the very first public relations campaign by JWB. During the media launch attended by JWB’s frontline partners, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) and Serikat Buruh Migran Indonesia, the campaign was commended for showcasing JWB’s cross-border civil litigation capacity. A number of new opportunities have already emerged as a result of the launch event, with MOFA openly communicating its intention to complete a joint work program with JWB in order to build knowledge of cross-border civil litigation among its diplomats in Singapore and Hong Kong. MOFA considers this to be an incredible opportunity to help its diplomats in completing their protective obligations in the two jurisdictions.
The campaign, #PercayaBersama, aims to ensure that Indonesians, especially migrant domestic workers, believe that just compensation is possible where rights have been violated and this was successfully communicated to the Indonesian media in our first PR campaign. To date, 17 news stories have been published on the #PercayaBersama campaign; some of which have had more than a million daily views, far exceeding the campaign’s key performance indicators. The campaign reached its peak in December 2020 with 200.08K views on our Indonesian Facebook page. As a direct result of this awareness campaign, JWB has been busy receiving inquiries from Indonesian migrant workers.
The initial idea of JWB’s #PercayaBersama was to create awareness among the Indonesian media and the wider public about the abuses that migrant domestic workers face and to demonstrate that there are ways to challenge this through the power of cross-border litigation . Through news coverage and the use of social media, we hope that Indonesians will also spread the news by word of mouth to such an extent that it is a common-place ‘coffee shop’ topic. We would like to see many more Indonesian MDWs coming forward to pursue justice.