Indonesian lawmakers on Tuesday urged the government to stop sending migrant workers to the Middle East, and especially Saudi Arabia, after the beheading of a maid who murdered her Saudi employer.
Parliamentarians said the oil-rich kingdom and other Gulf states should not benefit from cheap Indonesian labour until they agreed to protect workers' basic rights.
"We have asked the government to temporarily suspend sending Indonesian workers overseas, especially countries which refuse to sign an agreement which protects our workers' rights," deputy speaker Priyo Budi Santoso said.

Several lawmakers called on Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa and other key members of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's cabinet to resign over the treatment of migrant workers abroad.
The uproar came after Riyadh beheaded an Indonesian maid on Saturday for murdering her Saudi employer.
Ruyati binti Sapubi had been convicted of murdering Khairiya bint Hamid Mijlid with a meat cleaver after being denied permission to leave the kingdom, according to Indonesian officials.

Indonesia recalled its ambassador to Saudi Arabia for consultations on Monday and lodged a strong protest with the government in Riyadh, saying the Saudi authorities had ignored normal consular protocols.
Another 23 Indonesian migrant workers are on death row in Saudi Arabia, according to parliamentary labour commission member Rieke Dyah Pitaloka.
"The suspension (of migrant labour to the Middle East) must be applied soon, especially to Saudi Arabia," she told AFP.

Dozens of protesters including Sapubi's daughter protested outside the Saudi embassy in Jakarta to condemn the execution, carrying banners reading "Saudi is cruel and murderous".
Around 70 percent of the 1.2 million Indonesians working in Saudi Arabia are domestic helpers, according to officials.
Sapubi's case is the latest in a string of incidents involving Indonesian menial labourers in the Middle East.

Indonesians were outraged in April when a Saudi court overturned the conviction of a Saudi woman who had been jailed for three years for allegedly torturing her Indonesian maid with scissors and a hot iron.
London-based Amnesty International said the maid's treatment, which Yudhoyono described as "extraordinary torture," was all too characteristic of the plight of foreign workers in the region.
It said workers from countries like Indonesia, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka underpin the Gulf states' economies but face extreme forms of exploitation.