OFW FORUM
Jun Concepcion
With several million constituents spread across the world in need of a wide array of services, herculean efforts ought to be exerted by newly-appointed Department of Migrant Workers Secretary Susan “Toots” Ople for the agency to meet the excessively heavy demand of the job.
Caught between the proverbial devil and the deep blue sea, she has no choice but to adopt a set of priorities so she and her management team can hit the ground running, so to speak, and immediately address the pressing problems plaguing the most distressed OFWs, specifically the Pinay domestic helpers in different parts of the Middle East.
Tragically, the Middle East stands out as the region with the highest incidence of physical, psychological, and sexual abuses perpetrated on Filipino women compared to other parts of the world.
The abuses on Filipino women in that region is most certainly one of the areas where Ms. Ople and her management team should accord the highest priority. This is especially because many victims of the atrocious abuses are close – or have even gone beyond – their breaking points, with some reportedly now contemplating suicide out of desperation and hopelessness. Ascertaining the veracity of this disturbing phenomenon will not be difficult. Tuning in to various OFW Facebook group chats will easily provide a sound gauge or barometer on the severity of abuses that Filipino women endure there.
But where should holistic and effective initiatives to combat the continuing abuses of those Filipino women start?
Logically, the most ideal would be to identify the root causes of the multifaceted abuses of Filipino women, specifically the prevailing Kafala system in the region.
The International Labor Organization and other international bodies have cited the Kafala scheme as among, if not the principal, culprit that emboldens unscrupulous employers to abuse their domestic helpers. Originally intended to monitor movements of foreign workers, Kafala has evolved into a “modern-day bondage or slavery system.”
Because they’re aware that it’s extremely difficult for helpers to change jobs or employment, unscrupulous employers are allegedly emboldened to abuse their helpers. And the fact that errant employers are seldom punished under local laws is another vital factor that explains the impunity.
Since there seems to be an absence of a comprehensive strategy for dealing with the adverse effects of Kafala on Filipino women across the Middle East, it would be best for Ms. Ople and her management team to set up as soon as practicable a task force or “think tank” that will focus and tackle this single most important issue in Middle East deployments.
Tackling symptoms and manifestations of a recurring serious problem but not its root causes will in no way produce a lasting and effective solution.
Another priority area that Ms. Ople should look into is the possibility of reducing deployments of domestic helpers in favor of caregivers.
The rationale for this change in deployment strategy is easy to understand. Why continue deploying domestics to the Middle East when the majority of abuses are perpetrated on Filipino women there? Besides, the Filipino domestics there get only about P18,000 a month, or even less, with some reports saying that there are complaints of unpaid salaries for months.
The aging populations in Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, China, Taiwan and South Korea create an excellent opportunity for trained Filipino caregivers to earn salaries much higher than those in the Middle East. Trained caregivers in Japan, for instance, receive a starting salary of about P100,000 while those in Hong Kong can get about HK$10,000 or about P70,000.
Government-to-government deployment has been started with South Korea, and this scheme can very well be expanded with factory and various skilled and semi-skilled workers to be deployed in Taiwan, Japan and elsewhere in the Asia Pacific, including New Zealand and Australia. Since the POEA and other government agencies often have a hard time battling unscrupulous recruiters, government-to-government deployments are likely to provide much better safeguards to OFWs, especially for first timers.
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