An agreement intended to protect Indonesian maids in Malaysia actually opens the door to serious abuse by allowing employers to keep their passports, the UN special rapporteur on the human rights of migrants said Wednesday.

The memorandum of understanding between Indonesia and Malaysia signed earlier this year allows employers to take their maids' passports away from them, Jorge Bustamante told reporters after a fact-finding trip to Indonesia.

Paradoxically, the agreement intended to express the two countries' concern about the treatment of women migrants actually exposed them to potential abuse through this provision, the Mexican professor said.

"By doing that they produce a chain of situation of vulnerability for the migrants and this vulnerability goes together very often with serious violations of human rights such as women that are raped, such as women that are beaten..." he said.

Bustamante said he had heard reports of abuse from Indonesian women who had returned home.

The abuses included extremely long hours of work, no days off, irregular payment and psychological, physical and sexual abuse.

"What I saw at the most dramatic situation is the vulnerability of women as subjects of human rights.

"This vulnerability is the result of a process that begins in Indonesia with the recruitment of the women in their communities and then lured by the agents to be taken to (Malaysia) where they are literally sold to employers," he said.

Little protection

Malaysia depends heavily on foreign maids, with more than 300,000 from Indonesia, but they enjoy little protection under labour laws. The maids often live in and work all day every day to earn about 100 dollars a month.

Malaysia is one of the largest importers of foreign labour in Asia. Foreign workers, both legal and illegal, number around 2.6 million of its 10.5 million workforce, officials say.

Bustamante met with senior Indonesian officials and non-governmental organisations during his trip.

The special rapporteur said he would make recommendations to the Indonesian government and would present a report to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.