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Sexual Trafficking in the Philippines Filipino lives for sale at Philippine export market! All that is needed is to brand them Made in the Philippines before being shipped off. These caustic remarks were made by Teodoro Locsin while commenting the Philippine overseas employment program (cited in Kazuko 7). Locsin's article, however, represents just one of many critical commentaries (Kazuko 9). There are an estimated four to five million Filipinos living and working in over 160 countries and territories. In terms of both magnitude and geographic scope, the Philippines are the worlds largest exporter of government-sponsored, temporary contract work.
Each year, approximately 700, 000 workers are deployed on either six-month or two-year contracts (Piper 533). This does not include, moreover, the untold thousands of workers who migrate illegally. Opponents of overseas employment, such as Locsin, direct attention to the vulnerability and exploitation of migrants and especially of female migrants. Situated within a context of remittances and foreign exchange, stories of rape, murder, sexual abuse, and torture tell an alternative story of state neglect. The government is especially targeted for condemnation. Regarding, for example, the migration of female performing artists to Japan - many of whom are employed in the sex industry - Schirmer (82) writes: By facilitating through official channels, the employment of women in this type of entertainment, the Japanese and Philippine governments have provided a legal cover for the massive trafficking of Asian women in Japan and are, in effect, [] parties to its perpetuation.
Approximately 1. 5 million Overseas Filipino Workers (hereafter: OFWs) from the Philippines now work in these Asian countries, for example, in Japan, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan. Exactly how many Filipinos are working abroad is unclear. The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) estimates that 6, 974, 065 live abroad, which include 2. 94 million OFWs, 2. 1 million emigrants, and 1. 88 million undocumented workers (POEA cited in Tyner 120). Significantly, almost one third of Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) are undocumented workers, and are therefore the most marginalized of all workers, for whom little protection is provided from either their own country or receiving countries. Just over half of all migrant workers are women whose median age is 29.
While accurate figures, by definition, are impossible to obtain, at least half of the undocumented workers are women, working in Japan (Fenster 32). The total number of "illegal" workers in Japan from throughout the region is around 300, 000 with Filipino workers (including undocumented workers) being estimated at between 150, 000 and 200, 000 These are, however, conservative governmental estimates, and it has been remarked that this figure must be much higher in reality (Kuo 42). For proper understanding and reasoning of the situation described, it is necessary to investigate historical pre-conditions, which are inevitably connected with colonial past of the Philippines. In the years following the Philippine-American War, the United States government consolidated and stabilized the foremost result of that war U. S. colonial rule in the Philippines.
The most striking feature of the process of colonization was the grant by the U. S. empire-builders of formal political concessions to Philippine nationalism, in policies that appeared democratic when contrasted to those of the Spanish colonists. As was evidently intended, these concessions diffused both the Philippine and domestic opposition to U.
S. imperial policy in such a way as to improve the hold of this policy on the governments of both countries. While reducing direct and formal U. S. rule in the Philippines, these concessions strengthened U. S.
controlling, economic and cultural mechanisms, and so foreshadowed the policy that is known today as neocolonialism (Blanchard 88). The first and most obvious of these concessions was the opening up of the colonial government to the Philippine economic elite, the wealthy landowners in particular. The colonial period brought wealth to Philippine landowners from the free-trade relationship, but it brought no such benefit to the majority of the Philippine people, who lived in the countryside as tenant farmers and farm laborers. As the Philippine historian, Teodoro Agoncillo has written: Free-trade reinforced the backward feudal agrarian system carried over from the Spanish regime and... increased the suffering of the growing numbers of exploited farmers and workers in the country. The big landlords, in their desire to reap astronomical profits, continued to practice exploitative techniques they had learned from their Spanish masters on the hapless peasantry...
The result was poor living conditions, agrarian unrest, and periodic peasant uprisings and laborers's trikes in the 1920 s and 1930 s (cited in Schirmer & Shalom 54). At the turn of the century, the misery and suffering of the Filipino peasantry had provided an essential impulse and mass base for the armed nationalist struggle against both Spain and the United States. The repetition of these conditions of peasant life under U. S. colonial rule some decades later was to have a similar result: the emergence of an armed Filipino guerilla resistance of nationalist inspiration, especially in Central Luzon, during and after World War II (Kazuko 7). Those in the United States who sponsored and organized the colonization of the Philippines realized two achievements with far-reaching impact: they helped form a Filipino elite that was for years to come a reliable social and political base for the exercise of U.
S. influence, and they helped to create a neocolonial psychology that affected both the Filipino elite and the mass of the Filipino people, bringing with it enduring attitudes of subservience to foreign countries. The weight of foreign dominance would be preserved even after independence was declared and the formal trappings of colonial rule removed. And the current situation in the Philippines just demonstrate it Labor migration and the tourism industries are intertwined by constituting key hard currency-generating mechanisms for the heavily indebted Philippines (Coomaraswamy 17). The revenue from both these industries has been central to debt alleviation policies of the World Bank and structural adjustment programmes by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). This has meant a structural dependence on this form of income generation.
International contract labor migration from the Philippines has wrought substantial changes on Philippine society and economy. Besides remitted income from overseas workers is the premier foreign exchange earner for the Philippines. The "national" economy of the Philippines has become increasingly dependent on hard currency remittances of OFWs. Central Bank of the Philippines data reveal that in 1997 remittances collected through official channels was a massive $ 5. 7 billion. While these figures are considerable, there is also a sizeable volume of remittances occurring through informal channels such as through friends, door-to-door delivery and small agencies. Annual remittances through formal channels alone have been critical to offsetting the cost of oil imports, the foreign debt and improving the balance of payments for the Philippines (Shalom 78).
The macro-economic importance of remittances indicates that the Philippine state and economy is more dependent on the earnings of overseas workers than it is on foreign investments and foreign loans, emphasizing the high level of economic and political importance of this industry to the Philippine state. In fact, the experience of the Philippines is part of broader regional interdependencies on financial flows associated with interregional labor mobility - a crucial issue in the context of protective mechanisms for foreign migrant labor. The resourcing of Philippine government overseas missions is a major obstacle to adequate welfare provision to overseas workers. Most Philippine missions are understaffed and overworked. Labor Attaches within the Philippine Embassies bear the responsibilities of looking after worker welfare, and in many countries Labor Attaches and Overseas Worker Welfare Agency (OWWA) staff are on call 24 hours a day (Kofman et al. 215). On average there are less than two labour attaches per labour importing country - or about one Attache per 16, 000 workers.
Recently, the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) released statistics showing extremely high ratios between the number of labour and welfare officers assigned to a country and the number of OFWs in that particular country (e. g. 1: 26, 333 for Japan) (Kofman et al. 214). Under staffing results in overworked and highly stressed embassy staff and inadequately protected workers onsite. In 1995, an estimated 671 OFWs returned to the Philippines dead and up to 40, 971 suffered major mishaps while working abroad (Blanc 204).
In addition to under staffing, many foreign affairs officers and staff are inadequately trained for handling problems of OFWs. Traditionally, such officers have been concerned with consular and diplomatic work, rather than counseling workers who are suffering emotional stress, culture shock, sexual harassment, contract violations and other labour legalities (Cwikel & Hoban 307). This chronic level of under staffing and lack of appropriately trained staff is indicative of little real commitment of the Philippine government to real worker welfare. The increased prevalence of women in labour migration from the Philippines has resulted in their dominating the highly vulnerable occupations of domestic helpers and entertainers. The execution of the domestic worker Contemplation in Singapore in 1995 highlighted the vulnerability of women workers, with this incident resulting in a major enquiry into the overseas employment industry (Blanchard 92). This has led to some re-evaluations of policy, and while policy changes are afoot, abuse of women workers proceeds apace.
In addition to these indicators of inadequate funding to resource foreign missions, and therefore welfare provision, there is overwhelming evidence to show that the impacts are clearly gendered. For example, OWWA data for 1994 revealed that Department of Labour and Employment (DOLE), together with the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) handled 14, 314 reported cases involving OFWs (Mckinley et al. 70): 94. 5 % of health and death cases; 80. 6 % of crime and cultural offences; 78. 9 % of contract payment cases; and 78. 5 % of welfare cases (Scambler et al, 54). This pattern held regardless of which region. These figures therefore show that lack of resources of state agencies has disproportionately negative impact on Filipino women. There exists only one legal way for them of entering Japan, but this entails work in the sex...
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Research essay sample on Colonial Rule Foreign Affairs
