Filipina Migrant Workers Endure Suffering in Silence
A large white house appeared in a village ringed with banana trees. It was built by a family with money sent from their "Japayuki-san" daughter. The rumor spread quickly that "you can build a big house if you work in Japan." In spite of admonition by church sisters to "respect your integrity as Filipino women rather than money," the girls head for Japan.
South of Manila, an hour's drive by car, there is a village overlooking a clear blue lake created by the volcano, Mt. Taal. Here, a large white concrete house dra\ys one's attention. "Their daughter is in Tokyo," a neighbor woman commented, pointing to the house. Down the hill from the house is a cluster of 20 small houses constructed with pieces of boards provided by the government. The family in the white house had been living there until just six months ago.
The daughter, Dorrie (23), took a leave of absence from college two years ago because she could not pay tuition, and went to work as a bar hostess in the Ginza section of Tokyo. Since then she sent back about 700 dollars (90,000 yen) each month. "Thanks to her we can live in a fine house and her three brothers and sisters can go to school," said Dorrie's mother.
They were also able to open a small store selling chocolates and cola. "I feel sorry for my daughter", the mother explained as she pressed the bundle of letters and photographs to her breast.
Sandy (19), who lives in government housing, has also gone to Japan on a tourist visa with about 10 other girls from nearby villages. She worked for one year and had just returned home in February.
After graduating from high school, she worked with the mother doing wash at the house of a nearby farm owner. But their combined income amounted to only 100 pesos (600 yen) a day. It was not enough to support a fatherless family of six. "No money. I feel sorry for mother. I thought I could make money if I could put up with it," Sandy said in halting Japanese. She worked in a Filipino pub in Tokyo, and sent 400 dollars out of a salary of 500 dollars (65,000 yen). There was a hundred yen tip for each cola (500 yen) a customer would buy. "At first, I tried too hard and drank so many that I ruined my stomach. I don't even want to look at another cola." She received treatment at a hospital, and returned home to recover with a television set as a present.
Many women have not recovered from their experience in Japan. One such woman recuperates in a Manila church while washing clothes to make a living.
She is the eldest daughter of eight children. Two years ago, trusting the promoter's promise of "100,000 yen a month - just serving drinks," she went
to work at a nightclub in Nara prefecture last spring.
But she received no salary, and was forced into prostitution. When she resisted, amphetamines were injected between her toes. She repeatedly escaped only to be caught and taken back again. In the summer of the same year she sought help at a church near the nightclub, and was able to return, "There is no money in the Philippines but you can be happy here. At least I know." The illusion has finally faded.
"Soon I will get my visa to Japan." Jenny (16) was full of happy expectations, in a Mabini karaoke bar in Manila. She came from an island in the south six months ago with 10 other friends.
"Why do you want to go to Japan?"
"Because we are poor."
"How poor are you?"
"So poor that the Japanese have forgotten about it."
She looked puzzled at the many questions I asked her.
Jenny tries hard to sing a Japanese pop song by romanized Japanese lyrics, mike in hand. She is another woman working to support her family.
Source:
Resource Materials on Women's Labor in Japan No.4 April 1989 Asian Womens Workers' Center 2-3-18-34 Nishi-Waseda, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 169, Japan