Filipina: "Warm" Body Export
Review
FILIPINA WORKERS: A CASE OF EXPORTED WOMEN WORKERS
In our ISIS International Bulletin No. 10 we published an article by Angela del Rio entitled "Filipina domestic workers in Italy" (page 19). Since then, a number of groups have been working with Filipinas in Europe and North America to expose the dreadful terms of employment of these women, the illegality and vast profits made by employers and agencies from them.
Filipina workers: a case of exported women workers is a special dossier just published (January 1980) by the Migration Secretariat of the World Council of Churches, it is a selection of documents from different sources, including action groups, showing how the export of Filipino workers, and especially women as domestics, is now a conscious policy followed by the Philippine Government. There are currently more than one and a half million Filipinos working in over 100 countries of the world, and as one article points out, '"warm bodies' export is now one of the first five major dollar earners of the Philippines". Government agencies work together with travel agencies both in the Philippines and in the receiving countries to recruit women and send them (often illegally) to countries like Hong Kong,the Middle East, Italy., Belgium, Canada, Spain and the USA. The women are promised good wages, insurance, free travel back if they stay more than two years, and any number of enticing tidbits. The reality turns out nearly always to be quite different: they are paid almost nothing, they have to pay back their air fare, agency fee and medical certificate, they have no possibility of leaving since their passports are confiscated, and working conditions are frequently appalling -with 16 hour days and no days off or holidays.
It is pointed out that this mass movement of Filipinas is in fact an economic movement of mutual benefit to politicians and employers both in the countries to which the women go and in the Philippines. For the Philippines there is the obvious advantage of disposing of a potentially troublesome section of the unemployed or underemployed workforce, together with the potential foreign currency earnings in the money sent back by these workers. In 1978, these remittances totaled $384.3 million and was estimated to reach a billion dollars by the end of 1979. For the receiving countries of Europe, Asia and North America they meet immediate labour needs by doing the dirtiest and most despised jobs on the market.
The most recent documents included in this Dossier concern Filipinas recruited for Belgium, to work as domestics in the homes of businessmen and foreign diplomats. The usual arrangements were made through an international travel agency, with the women expecting good work and pay. In fact they were appallingly by paid, with no insurance or medical care, and frequently mistreated. They were also illegally in Belgium, so that when an action group started work to help them by informing various ministries and government officials, the response was to arrest 21 of these Filipinas and jail them like common criminals. They have now been deported with the comment from the Ministry of Justice that the law is the law and has to be respected. This "law" does not seem to go beyond those who are the least able to defend themselves against the injustices of a system which has exploited them from beginning to end. It sees fit to arrest the workers, but not the employers, the intermediaries, the travel agents, the government officials and many more who are the ones who profit from such ventures. (See below for the full story).
The Dossier also includes documentation on Prostitution and Tourism (cf. ISIS Bulletin No. 13), and details of the research being done by the Filipino Kababayan group in
Italy. We highly recommend it.
Available free of charge from:
Migration Secretariat, World Council of Churches, 150 route de Ferney,
1211 Geneva 20, Switzerland.
(see also Resources section)
PHILIPPINE WOMEN PROMISED HEAVEN
Below we reproduce the latest information we have on the story of Filipinas in Belgium. It is available from: Kommissie Rechtvaardigheid en Vrede, Chris Roekaerts, Tweekerkenstraat 17, 1040 Brussels, Belgium.
Small groups of young Philippine women arrived in Belgium, from July 1979, to join the huge pool of cheap foreign labour. By the end of November some fifty Filipinas had arrived. They had been recruited by sub-agents of the International Travel Agency with offers of employment abroad. The dangling carrot: a suitable job and well paid, with ideal living conditions. The proposed starting salary was $ 450 a month; regular increases were promised. The employers, so they were told, would cater for their personal needs as regards clothing and the like. Once the women accepted the services of the International Travel Agency they were brought to Manila to have their documents arranged. The agency, which took care of all formalities, charged between 15,000 and 22,000 Pesos for air travel and expenses. All miscellaneous expenses (e.g. medical certificates) had to be paid for by the women. The Filipinas were promised a two-way ticket. The employer, so they were also told, would reinburse one half of the expenses.
To leave the Philippines the women were issued a tourist visa and mostly traveled to Europe via Hong Kong. The Filipinas who had chosen Belgium as the country of their dreams were instructed to disembark at Paris and to proceed to Brussels by train. This allowed them to avoid having their passports stamped by custom officials at the national airport. Since no exact date of arrival would be known, the Filipinas, should they be questioned, were instructed to state that they had just arrived a few days earlier to study French
Upon arrival in Brussels, the women were told to contact a certain Laura, of Filipino nationality and part-time employee at a foreign embassy, at her residence in Brussels. The Filipinas were given board and lodging by this women and, while apparently waiting till an employer had been found, they did the housekeeping and/or paid rent for board and lodging.
Laura, who was described by some of the women as a hooker and a frequent visitor of the better known disco bars in Brussels, introduced some of the Filipinas to the capital's night life. At a later stage she asked these women to go and stay for the night at a friend's house since she expected visitors who would stay overnight. " I t just so happened" that this friend also had some friends visiting and advances were made to the women.
Employment for the Filipinas was often found with businessmen and foreign diplomats. The women received salaries between 5,000 and 13,000 Belgian Francs a month. Some employers, on the other hand, paid the women legal wages and treated them as members of the household. However, they could not legalize the status of the Filipinas because the Belgian Government no longer issues work permits to foreigners. Only those employed with embassy and NATO-personnel were legally employed but none were registered for purposes of social security and medicare. The other women, employed under less fortunate conditions, started looking for help.
When the Philippine Embassy did not intervene on their behalf, seemingly because of high government officials reportedly sponsoring the International Travel Agency and because of the alleged connection of Laura with embassy personnel in Brussels, the women turned to some Filipina sisters, studying French in Belgium before leaving for their mission stations in Africa.
The sisters, not having a deep knowledge of Belgian law and unable to find their way in the administrative labyrinth which characterizes democracies, called upon a Flemish action group to help them out. This group, in good faith, started the compilation of a dossier exposing the racket. This dossier, containing the curricula and the addresses of all the Filipinas the group knew to be illegally employed and exploited in Belgium, was presented to a member of parliament who handed it over to Mr. Van Elslande, minister of Justice. The request was made to start an investigation, to stop the trade and to look into the possibilities of legalizing the stay of at least 20 girls. A second dossier was given to the Flemish Commission for Justice and Peace.
Action was taken. On 20 November 1979 the Belgium police for foreigners arrested Laura together with six Filipina women who were staying at her apartment. These women were brought to the national prison of Forest. Two days later, the police arrested a further fifteen women, whose names and addresses had figured in the file submitted to the ministry of Justice. The names and addresses of some 50 Filipinas were discovered by the police in the apartment of Laura. Since most of these women had changed employers, their actual addresses were unknown. None of the Filipinas were allowed to call a member of the action group, while one women, who has a relative in Louvain, was even refused permission to inform this person. The story broke when one employer, concerned about the future of the women, informed the sisters.
The action group then contacted the Ministry of Justice,, the police for foreigners, the national security and several individual politicians to ask why these women were arrested and jailed like common criminals. An identical answer was given by all contacted: the law is the law and has to be respected. The group was informed that the women would be sent back to the Philippines at the soonest possible time but that no legal action would be taken against them. They could freely leave the country and can, in a legal sense, return if ever they can obtain the necessary papers
However, by now they know that the Belgian government no longer issues work permits to foreigners. According to the law, the employer or the families which housed the Filipinas, will be forced to pay the expenses as well as a fine.
In coordination with the Belgian Commissions for Justice and Peace, and at a later stage with the League for the Defense of Human Rights, the action group Filipina
women, informed the mass media and called upon the Ministry of Justice with the request to delay the expulsion order so as to give the women a chance to receive a fair hearing.
Despite a press and radio campaign and despite the efforts of the Justice and Peace Commission and the League for the Defense of Human Rights, the women, who were by that time all illegally staying in Belgium — their tourist visas having expired - and illegally employed, were sent back to the Philippines. A first group left on 22 November and consecutive groups on 2 and 12 December. Some more Filipinas await expulsion, if and when they are found. Efforts to have them released from jail under protective custody of some concerned organizations failed.
Since one cannot change illegality into legality the action group then started working on the human level.
A request was made and granted to allow a number of the action group who is also attached to the Justice and Peace Commission, to visit the Filipinas in jail and to accompany them to the international airport where they could depart as tourists.
The league for the Defense of Human Rights, through their lawyers, filed a case against unscrupulous employers and requested that the Filipinas receive their legal back wages for the time they worked, as well as severance pay.
A request has been made that in future, if and when Filipinas are arrested, they will not be sent to jail to await expulsion but will be allowed bail, since no legal charges are or will be made, and their being jailed is only a measure of preventive detention.
The Philippine Embassy and the Belgian Embassy in Manila were requested to start an information drive to warn prospective candidates for employment in Belgium that the Belgian government no longer issues work permits to foreigners.
Brussels, 14 December 1979