Arroyo's Labor Export Policy and the GFMD Promotes the Trafficking of Filipinas – Gabriela Women's Party

October 24, 2008

Gabriela Women's Party today scored the Arroyo government and the Global Forum for Migration and Development (GFMD) for the intensified trafficking of Filipino women and children, through a protest parade today at the Department of Foreign Affairs in Pasay City.

Dubbed the "Parade of Pinays for Export (PX)," the protest action highlighted the plight of trafficked Filipinas as mail order brides, domestic workers and caregivers, and prostituted women in countries such as the US, Singapore, Japan, Kuwait, and Canada, among others.

According to reports, some 300,000 to 400,000 Filipinas are victims of trafficking yearly. They are among the 12.3 million victims of forced labor or servitude worldwide.

"Pres. Arroyo's labor export policy legitimizes the trafficking of our women and children to precarious and exploitative situations in host countries. Without jobs and livelihood within the Philippines, victims are lured, deceived and facilitated by profit-hungry syndicate recruiters and even government officials with promises of different jobs, good compensation, high wages and benefits," said Cristina Palabay, Gabriela Women's Party Secretary General.

According to the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), the Philippines belongs to the top five countries in the world as origins of human trafficking victims, 80% of the victims are female minors. The Department of Foreign Affairs reported some 238 cases of trafficking in 2007, 212 of these are cases of sex trafficking in Singapore.

Despite the enactment of the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act in 2003, Palabay observed that there were only 8 convictions involving 11 persons out of more than 200 cases filed in violation of the law since 2003.

Palabay also said that by highlighting the Philippine government as the role model among nations for exporting labor and by pursuing regular and protective forms of migration, the GFMD's role in the promotion of trafficking of women and children becomes clearer.

"The GFMD sees trafficking not just mere obstacles to legal migration. With the generation of some $28 billion from the illegal industry of trafficking of women and children, it is seen as a profitable industry in the scheme of labor migration as a tool for development. It betrays the GFMD's agenda in legitimizing trafficking as well," the woman leader commented.

Gabriela Women's Party will participate in the International Assembly of Migrants and Refugees, a counter forum to the GFMD, on October 28-30, 2008. It will likewise participate in the Joint Consultation with the United Nations Special Rapporteurs on Human Rights of Migrants and on Contemporary Forms of Slavery to share the party's views on forced migration and trafficking of women and children.
 

MESSAGE OF SOLIDARITY FROM THE ILPS CHAIRPERSON
TO THE INTERNATIONAL ASSEMBLY OF MIGRANTS AND REFUGEE

By Prof. Jose Maria Sison
Chairperson, International Coordinating Committee
International League of Peoples' Struggle
October 28, 2008

On behalf of the International League of Peoples' Struggle (ILPS), I
wish to convey warmest militant greetings of solidarity to all the
delegations now convened in this International Assembly of Migrants,
Refugees and Advocates. I congratulate all the organizers, including the
International Alliance of Migrants, Migrante International, Asia Pacific
Mission for Migrants, IBON Foundation and BAYAN for the successful
preparation of this assembly, especially through a campaign since August.

We in the ILPS are deeply pleased and inspired that you are challenging the intergovernment-directed Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) and that you have put forward the thematic call: End poverty, ensure jobs at home, stop forced migration! Uphold and protect the rights of migrants and refugees. We are gratified that the assembly's program of activities is designed to let the migrants speak for themselves.

We are confident that your assembly will fulfil such aims as to deepen
and sharpen among the migrants and the people in general the critical
awareness of the pro-imperialist and anti-migrant GMFD framework and
agenda, lay bare the exploitative foundation and consequences of
so-called neoliberal globalization on the lives of migrants, refugees
and their families, build the process of attaining consensus on the
platform of migrants in opposition to the GFMD and on the basis of
consensus strengthen unity and solidarity of migrants, refugees and
advocates.

The phenomenon of large scale migration, displacement of people and
refugees is the result of exploitation and oppression by foreign
monopoly capitalism and local reaction. Migrants are driven to leave
their families and friends to seek jobs abroad because of poverty, lack
of employment and persistent underdevelopment. People are displaced
because foreign corporations and their local collaborators covet and
grab the land and other natural resources and use violence to achieve
their vile objective. Political refugees leave their homeland because of
intolerable persecution and the suppression of the people's resistance.

 

To the sending governments, the migrant workers are no more than an
object of further exploitation. They are a source of exorbitant fees
with no real services given in return. They are a source of foreign
exchange which is used not for development and job creation but for the
aggravation of underdevelopment and poverty. The sending governments and the receiving governments collaborate in depriving the migrant
workers of their rights and pressing down their wages. The GFMD is
perversely hyping migration as a tool of development even as it is a
product of underdevelopment and a cause of further underdevelopment.
 

Now, the policy of “neoliberal globalization”, which has aggravated
underdevelopment and poverty in nearly three decades, is unravelling due to the crisis of overproduction in the real economy and to the extreme abuses of financial speculation and derivative-making by monopoly finance capital. The migrant workers face the consequences of the worsening global economic and financial crisis, which is expected to run for at least two years and up to ten years.

The receiving countries are in the throes of economic stagnation and
rising unemployment. Currents of chauvinism, racism, religious bigotry
and fascism are growing. From year to year, the economic and political
conditions are bound to become more adverse to the migrant workers. And yet these conditions will become far worse in their impoverished and underdeveloped homelands.

We are confident and hopeful that in the assembly you can discuss and
arrive at the ways and means by which you can meet the challenges posed by the worsening economic and political crisis. There are problems to solve regarding the employment and rights of the migrant workers and refugees while they remain in the receiving countries. The migrant workers and refugees can have their respective national organizations abroad. These become components of the International Alliance of Migrants. They need to develop solidarity with the internationalist organizations and institutions of the host countries.

There are also the problems to solve regarding the migrant workers who
return to their homelands. There ought to be organizations and
institutions that facilitate their integration in the movement and
struggle of the people for national freedom, democracy, social justice,
development and just peace. The problems of one's country can be solved only by the people themselves through collective struggle. ###