than in Kuala Lumpur, using private businesses as lionts. The CSO presence including even of church groups is also verythin which leaves the hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants there with little outside support. In the Philippines the Indonesian embassy's estimate of sorne 20,000 largely undocumerted Indonesians living in Mindanao for some four decades are uorking plantation workers, farmers and fishermen. They have adopted Filipin,.l names. are as Catholics or Protestants, speak Cebuano and already borne a third generation of Indonesians in the country. The embassy has reported that the Philippine military has been confronting many of these Indonesians and accused them of being terrorist members of Jemaah lslamiyah and other groups. When arrests are made however the embassy is "seldom" informed is in violation of the Geneva Conventions. The embassy has already requested the Philippine goverrment to consider these thousands of their citizens as refugees. Stranded and imprisoned workers. There are thousands of Filipino workers stranded abroad and in diflicult situations. IV{igrante's Middle East clupter most recent estimates are that some 10,000 OFWs - mainly runaways escaping abusive employers or otherwise stuck because of retrenchment or unexpected change in visa rules - are stranded in the Middle East, particularly in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Lebanon, Jordan, Libya and Syria. As of 2005 the DFA reported 4,775 'mprisoned Filipinos abroad including 35 OFWs on death row. Migrante's latest monitoring as of rnid-2009 rneanwhile records 2l OFWs on death row, of which 20 are in SaudiArabia and olwhom four are females, with another l4 whose death sentence was commuted. In Malaysia there is a male OFW on death row with another whose sentence was commuted to lifb imprisonment; in Singapore the death sentence of a fernale OFW was commuted and she is still serving 10 years of imprisonment. Migrante's experiences in handling cases involving death row inmates is that the Philippine government hardly provides them legal protection or assistance, even as it has been proven that successful campaigns can be waged to save their lives such as for commutation to life sentences. The government has certainly been prompted to intervene especially upon public pressure or from migrant workers'families. These interventions are consciously and as a matter of policy not publicized or discussed openly by the government though given the delicate and sensitive nature of the negotiations and the matter in general. In SaudiArabia for instance are hundreds of OFW victims of various abuses and exploitative practices: gross violations of ernployment contracts (unpaid and underpaynent of salaries), non payment of benefits, long working hours, victims of rape and physical abuse, and contract substitution. Many are victims of illegal recruitment and tratlicking. Moreover, employers and recruitment agencies confiscated their passports rupon arrival. lnstead of providing them refuge the Philippine embassy made them surrender to the Immigration Police who detained them in subhuman conditions: overcrowded prison cells with poor ventilation, lack of food, no safe water and no 36