Indonesian Women Workers’ Condition Within Kafala Labor System in Egypt: The Case of Winarti Musiyar

Abstract

The research examines Indonesian women workers' conditions in Egypt, which has been known for its solid patriarchal cultural background. A case that occurred to an Indonesian women worker, Winarti Musiyar, is chosen as the topic-focus on providing a complete description of the underlying factors behind the misfortune occurring to her. Moreover, the research focuses on Winarti's motivating factor in deciding to work in Egypt, Indonesian women workers' conditions in Egypt after the migrant workers moratorium in the Middle East, and misconceptions of language and culture that Winarti probably encountered when working in Egypt. The postcolonialism theory initiated by Edward Said and the DualSystem theory, a synthesis of Marxist and Radical Feminist theory, is applied as a dissecting theory to the object under study. To comprehend the context of the discussion, a descriptive-analytical approach is carried out, as well as a sociocultural approach to describe unquantified phenomena to become descriptive. The researchers conclude several factors caused the phenomenon experienced by Winarti based on the labor system in the Middle East, namely, Kafala and the language-cultural background that pushed Winarti to experience the tragic circumstances of becoming a murder victim in Egypt 2015. The phenomenon experienced by Winarti Musiyar reflects the fate of Indonesian women migrant workers in Egypt.