Pekanbaru. Malaysian authorities have deported 37 Indonesian migrant workers -- 21 men and 16 women --who arrived at Dumai International Port in Riau on Saturday, an Indonesian official said.

They allegedly entered Malaysia without proper documentation or overstayed their permits.

Upon arrival at the Dumai port, the deportees underwent document checks by the immigration office and medical examinations by the port’s quarantine authority.

“They entered [Malaysia] illegally -- some overstayed their permits, and most of them lacked proper documents,” said Fanny Wahyu Kurniawan, head of the provincial branch of the Indonesian Migrant Worker Protection and Service Agency (BP3MI).

Nearly half of the deported workers are from East Java, with the others from West Nusa Tenggara (8), East Nusa Tenggara (3), North Sumatra (2), West Sumatra (2), and one each from the Riau Islands, West Java, Aceh, and Central Java.

The deportees were temporarily placed in a shelter in Dumai before being sent back to their respective hometowns.

Fanny noted that the agency has received 291 deported Indonesian migrant workers from Malaysia in recent months, adding that the figure typically increases during Ramadan and Eid al-Fitr.

“We predict this number will grow significantly during the upcoming Ramadan,” Fanny said.

Malaysia is one of the largest destinations for Indonesian migrant workers, with hundreds of thousands employed in sectors such as plantations, construction, manufacturing, domestic work, and services.

As of recent estimates, there are around 700,000 documented Indonesian workers in Malaysia, but hundreds of thousands more are believed to be working illegally due to the high demand for labor.

Many undocumented workers face exploitation, poor working conditions, unpaid wages, and risk of deportation due to their lack of legal status.

The Indonesian and Malaysian governments have signed multiple bilateral agreements to regulate and protect Indonesian workers, but illegal recruitment networks continue to operate, often luring job seekers with false promises of higher wages and easy employment.