OFWs remain vulnerable to discrimination, rights violation

With over 3,000 Filipinos forced to leave the country daily for overseas employment, no wonder the cases of discrimination they experience could be as many. “Discrimination feeds mistrust, resentment, violence, crime and insecurity and makes no economic sense, since it reduces productivity," said United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay in her message on the occasion of International Human Rights Day last Thursday December 10. Her renewed calls, thus, for individuals, groups, and governments to work towards ending discrimination against migrants and refugees were welcomed by two major migrant organizations in the country. “Mass migration remains a grave concern, especially for women domestic helpers, because there exists no internationally accepted standards for protecting migrant workers," said Ellene Sana, executive director of the Center for Migrant Advocacy (CMA). Another migrant rights group, Migrante International, also said the government’s labor export policy resulted in overseas Filipino workers (OFW) being “sacrificial lambs" to ensure an open labor market and the continued flow of remittances, leaving migrant workers vulnerable to discrimination and human rights violations. Increasing OFW deployment Based on recent data from the Philippine Overseas Employment Agency, deployment of OFWs in 2008 increased by 14% from the previous year to 1.2 million, over 50% of whom are sent to the Middle East and with an over-all annual remittance amounting to roughly $17 billion. About 9 to 10 million Filipinos, or approximately 10% of the total population, are currently living in 193 countries and territories, according to the CMA. The staggering figures also translate to a slew of human rights violations. As of 2007, Migrante has been handling over 1,000 cases of abuses against OFWs, including cases of repatriation, illegal recruitment and trafficking. For the same period, at least 4,775 Filipinos including 673 women and 50 minors were recorded imprisoned and 35 on death row. The figures do not yet include the recent spate of hijacking of ships, including 68 Filipinos currently being held by pirates in Somalia and Nigeria. Sana, however, believes that OFWs are in better conditions today since 2007 when the government started implementing policy reforms for OFWs, such as removal of placement fees, improved certification processes for workers, and more tedious accreditation and verification of agencies and employers. Women are most vulnerable Still, discriminatory practices exist, more so in areas of high levels of OFW concentration and women workers, according to Sana. In Hong Kong for example where over 70,000 workers were deployed last year, all migrant workers except helpers can achieve residency status after seven years of living in this Chinese territory. Terminated helpers are also given only two weeks to look for a new employer or leave the territory. In the Gulf regions where over 300,000 OFWs were deployed in 2008, women workers reportedly do not have rest days, no visitation privileges, their movement is restricted and passports are confiscated. In some European countries like Holland, Filipino women with foreigner husbands are required to live with their spouses for at least three years before they become can citizens, some of them ending up as victims of domestic violence. Creation of jobs, not labor export “Migration cannot be a development strategy," Sana said as she criticized the government’s failure to create domestic jobs. Migrante also said, “A policy of labor export inherently limits, if not directly contradicts, the state’s ability to protect migrants’ rights and welfare." While recognizing the government’s attempts at improving the plight of Filipino migrant workers, Sana believes that the all these will be futile given the limited presence of labor offices across the world and problems in implementation due to lack of resources. In the meantime, both CMA and Migrante vow to continue pressuring the government to put a stop to its policy of labor export, as well as ceaselessly work towards improving the conditions of more than a million Filipino workers all the world over. - JMA, JV/GMANews.TV