3 Migration.doc - 1 ARTS2212 Southeast Lecture handout:...

ARTS2212 Southeast Lecture handout: Migration
I. The global working economy has resulted in the phenomenon of the overseas
contract worker who is hired to work away from the homeland for a short period of time.
The Philippines is arguably the largest exporter of labour in the world (the other
contenders are India and Mexico). This practice of outsourcing Filipino labour has a
century long history but we will focus on the period from the 1970s onwards because that
is when President Ferdinand Marcos makes it a clear government policy to send workers
abroad in order to alleviate the unemployment situation. See the problem here of not
having the rights of citizens in their host countries and that the sending country—the
Philippines sees them as a labour export (a cash cow for remittances, seafarers are
required by law to remit 80% of their base wages which amounts to about US$2 billion
each year). So, both the host countries and the sending country do not look after the
human rights of these workers and this becomes a critical issue since they are vulnerable
to exploitation (and in some cases trafficking). Rolando Tolentino says that the female
domestic worker is a “partial citizen in the homeland and an absent one in the host land”.
II. Statistics are staggering with around 10 million or 10% of the population working
overseas in about 140 countries. The effect of this migration on the home country is
phenomenal as remittances sent by Filipinos abroad reached US$34 billion in 2018.
Every hour 100 migrant workers leave the country. In 1999 half of them were in the
Middle East (26.5%) 42% in North America and 8 percent in Europe. In 2003 there were
153,000 Filipino maids in Hong Kong, in 2011 120,000.
There are over 275,000 Filipino seafarers, they are by far the largest national group
making up 28.1% of the global seafaring workforce.
Entertainers to Japan: 80,000 but these dropped to 8000 (officially) in 2005
About 3 million in the Middle East. 992,000 families have an OCW.