Anis Hidayah

Anis Hidayah is an alumna of DTP’s first regional program on Migrant Workers’ Rights in Jakarta in 2004.

Anis led Migrant Care, an NGO fighting for the rights of Indonesian migrant workers across the world and for the lives of those on death row. She has been advocating tirelessly for almost twenty years and received the Yap Thiam Hien human rights award in 2014. Her work has been made more difficult by Indonesia’s own support for executions, but she continues to fight against the death penalty at home and abroad – reasoning that the lives of Indonesians overseas are more likely to be spared if Indonesia opposes the death penalty in all cases.

Indonesia has since ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Migrant Workers and their Families.

“I learned that migrant workers’ rights had been violated even before they went abroad. They were treated as prisoners here in migrant worker shelters and this was a fact that everyone ignored. They are not considered humans or worthy enough to get attention. The recent executions of death-row inmates in Indonesia have made it difficult for us to fight for migrant workers who are facing death penalties abroad.”