Recently, Gulf newspapers have exploded with headlines decrying the dangers of maids. Every few days, a new headline surfaces reprimanding maids for their sexual exploits, their untrustworthiness, and their violent tendencies. The cumulative effect inflames an already disparaging image of foreign do…
Archive for the ‘Women’ Category
UN passes resolution on violence against female migrant workers
December 2nd, 2011
Last week, the UN passed a resolution initiated by Indonesia and the Philippines which aims to improve the status of female migrant workers. The resolution primarily encourages multilateral cooperation to address and prevent the mistreatment of female migrant workers, who are particularly vulnerable...
Philippines toughens rules for maids in Gulf – can it make a difference?
November 2nd, 2011
Gulf Housemaids Sponsorship UAE Women
The kafala or sponsorship system in the Gulf should be abolished, this is an absolute prerequisite for the full personhood and humanization of domestic workers. The Philippine government's new standards for overseas domestic workers and tentative bans on 41 non-compliant host countries are praiseworthy but far from promising--it is highly doubtful that this cosmetically laudable "concrete plan" will make it far off of the pages of the government’s issuance.
Kaisa Ka (Unity of Women for Freedom)
November 1st, 2011
On October 24, 2011 the Philippines played host to the three-day Asia Regional Conference on “Advocacy towards the Ratification and Implementation of ILO Convention 189 on Domestic Workers”. With an estimated 100 million domestic workers worldwide, international labor standards that ensure the s...
30 Distressed Filipino workers seek repatriation
October 24th, 2011
Abusive employers Gulf Housemaids Oman Recruitment Agencies Trafficking Women
There are 30 plus distressed overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), all women, in Oman temporarily seeking refuge at the Philippine Embassy’s Filipino Workers Resource Center (FWRC), according to a Filipino migrants rights group providing assistance to distressed and abused OFWs. Migrante-Middle East r...
Sri Lankan Housemaids in Saudi Arabia Plead to be Returned Home
October 8th, 2011
Abusive employers Housemaids Saudi Arabia
Hundreds of female migrant workers from South and Southeast Asia are being held in the Olaya detention camp in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: Their only crime running away from abusive former employers. In a telephone interview with one detainee, a BBC reporter was bombarded with voices from other inmates, a...
PH govt. performs poorly in combating illegal recruitment activities; average of 10 victims daily
October 7th, 2011
Documentation Recruitment Agencies Trafficking
As it continue to receive, on a daily basis, cases of illegal recruitment victimizing overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), a Filipino migrants’ rights group today said the Philippine government, from the preceding years up to this current year (2011) now under the Aquino III administration, ‘perfor...
Interview with Ethiopian Migrant & Filmmaker Rahel Zegeye
October 2nd, 2011
Rahel Zegeye is a domestic worker in Lebanon, but that is not all she is: this is precisely the filmmaker’s message in her rising film “Beirut,” which delves into the personal lives of six fictional Ethiopian migrants. While Zegeye does not shy away from denunciating the severe mis...
Apathy in Jordan: The Classic Fashion Factory Exposed
September 28th, 2011
Abusive employers Jordan Rape Working conditions
The Institute for Global Human Rights & Law’s expose of the Classic Factory in Jordan is gaining increasing attention across media platforms. Interviews with several factory workers document the daily abuse inflicted by factory management and ignored by the Jordanian government, oversigh...
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