Legal Protection for Workers with Disabilities in Indonesia: Implementation Analysis and Comparison with Japan from a Labor Justice Perspective
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Workers with disabilities in Indonesia continue to face legal, structural, and social barriers to obtaining and maintaining employment in the formal sector, despite a legal framework that recognizes equal employment rights and freedom from discrimination. These barriers include fragmented regulations, weak institutional coordination, limited accessibility, inadequate workplace support, weak monitoring, and inconsistent enforcement. This study aims to analyze the legal implementation of disability employment protection in Indonesia through secondary evidence and to identify legal and institutional factors affecting its operation, while comparing Indonesia’s legal and institutional mechanisms with those of Japan. This normative-juridical study employs a comparative approach to relevant legislation, international legal instruments, policy documents, official reports, available data, and academic literature. The findings indicate that the main challenge lies not in the absence of legal recognition but in the limited operationalization of legal norms, weak oversight capacity, and inconsistent enforcement mechanisms. The comparison shows that Japan combines statutory protection with more developed administrative mechanisms, including employment reporting, reasonable accommodation guidance, and incentive-based compliance measures. The study concludes that strengthening disability employment protection in Indonesia requires clearer operational standards, stronger institutional coordination and oversight, more consistent enforcement, and contextual adaptation of relevant comparative practices. The study contributes to understanding how the protection of workers with disabilities depends not only on normative recognition but also on the institutional and administrative mechanisms that translate legal rights into effective protection.
Authors: Salman Alfarisi, Ratih Damayanti
Institution: State University of Semarang
Language: English
Subfield: Law
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W7151082408