SHAPING THE FUTURE HOW CHANGING DEMOGRAPHICS CAN POWER HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

BOX 2.4:
Legal aid delivers justice in Indonesia
In Indonesia, about 42 percent of the population
earns below $2 per day, making access to lowcost
legal services essential for protecting their
rights and privileges. In 2011, Indonesia passed
a new law on legal aid with the provision that any
defendant will receive legal counsel at every stage
of the legal process. The objective of this law is to
provide equal access to justice for all citizens. To
further implement the law, in 2013 the Government
launched a nationally funded legal aid system with
310 organizations accredited to deliver services.
Poor and marginalized people need legal support
to obtain access to legal identification and social
security programmes, secure land and property
rights, stop gender-based violence, seek protection
from ethnic and other forms of discrimination,
and protect their labour rights. Legal aid services
provide assistance on these and many other issues.
For example, a civil society organization, Women’s
Association for Justice and Legal Aid, reaches out
to underprivileged women to raise awareness on
how to deal with cases of violence, discrimination
and rights relating to employment, property and
marriage.
With limited access to legal services, local disputes
may otherwise be resolved by village-level
and religious traditional leaders, a process that
can reinforce inequity or bias. Many legal aid institutions
are now working to train village paralegals
to provide basic legal information and referrals to
legal professionals.
Source: The Asia Foundation 2014.
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The essential rights
of domestic workers
should be fully
protected
Women are more often in vulnerable employment
than men, with one of the most risk-prone
professions being domestic work. Currently,
Asia provides 40 percent of domestic workers
globally, comprising 21.5 million women and
girls. 34 This is an important source of income
as well as remittances, constituting 7.5 percent
of female wage employment around the world.
Yet workers are frequently prone to domestic
abuse, violence, confinement, denial of wages
and other forms of human rights violations, and
lack access to legal support and state protection.
In 2011, the Domestic Workers Convention
enacted by the ILO became the first treaty to
protect the rights and privileges of domestic
workers, ensuring they have the same basic
rights as those available to other workers in
their country, including weekly days off, limits
to hours of work, minimum wage coverage,
over-time compensation, social security, and
clear information on the terms and conditions
of employment. 35 The Philippines is among the
countries that have ratified this convention. With
over 2 million domestic workers at home, and
millions more abroad who are sending remittances
home, implementation could provide a huge
boost in quality of life and human development
prospects for workers and their families. 36
Some of the poorest and most vulnerable
people find jobs in the construction industry.
In India, for example, 1 in every 10 workers
is employed there, totalling 50 million people
in 2012. A study in Delhi 37 revealed that a
majority were inter-state migrants, including
large numbers from socially deprived castes and
tribes who were in bonded labour. Low wages,
irregular payments, a risk of accidents and long
working hours were reported by workers as the
most critical problems. Measures to begin correcting
some of these concerns include universal
registration of workers; effective implementation
of existing labour laws; formal binding guidelines
for contracts between employers, recruiters and
workers; reform and harmonization of major labour
laws applicable to the industry; and reform
of social security laws to allow more effective
implementation.
Reduce exploitation of migrant workers: Migrant
workers face a host of challenges related
to human rights. Those who are undocumented
are most vulnerable. A large number of migrants
from and within Asia-Pacific likely fall in this
category. Because of their insecure legal status,
they are prone to low pay, often below legal
minimum wages, as well as denial of other
rights, hazardous work conditions, limited job
mobility and inadequate legal support.