•  
  •  
 

Abstract

Domestic migrant workers living with their employers is one of the major causes of cases of high inequality globally. To ease this problem, the Indonesian government has attempted to empower women ex-migrant workers by prohibiting them from returning to work in the domestic sector abroad. This empowerment program was implemented through the sustainability training program of the Community of Migrant Worker’s Families (KKBM) from 2017 to 2019. The government hoped that by focusing on entrepreneurship, former migrant laborers would be able to achieve financial independence. Most of them, however, decided to return to their previous jobs or to work overseas after completing the training. By using a qualitative case study method, this study sought to assess communication strategies and offer solutions; it was focused on the period from March 2019 to October 2019, after the program had ended. The results showed that the bottom-up communication strategy for the empowerment program through KKBM did not work well because the government’s communication in the program implementation was conducted vertically and one-way without fully involving women ex-migrant workers or emphasizing the program goals. In addition, the sustainability of the program was not carried out appropriately. Instead, it was only focused on low-power community organizers.

Author Biography

Moh Faidol Juddi is a Lecturer at the School of Communication Business, Telkom University. His previous focus was the protection and empowerment of Indonesian female migrant workers and government branding between 2018 and 2021. He succeeded in disseminating those output studies both at international conferences and reputable journal publishers. His ongoing research topic currently focuses on the gig economy and digital payment.

Download

Share

COinS