DOLE seeks support for domestic workers convention

After heading the International Labor Organization (ILO) committee on domestic workers in June this year, the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) is drumming up “multi-stakeholder support” for the ratification of the Domestic Workers’ Convention (ILO Convention 189).

In a statement released on Tuesday, DOLE Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz said the Philippines must ratify the convention which can protect Filipino household helpers around the world.

“Generating this support is crucial in our efforts to enhance the policy environment toward the protection of our domestic workers,” she said.

Baldoz added that the country wants to ensure that all Filipino domestic workers “enjoy the same protection” that other Filipino workers have.

The convention received the majority nod of the 183-member tripartite labor body, where each member-state is represented by two government delegates, and one employer and one worker delegate.

Countries like the United States, Australia, and Brazil rallied behind the convention while only Swaziland opposed.

Last week, Sen. Loren Legarda filed Resolution No. 615, which calls on the Aquino administration to ratify the Convention, “bearing in mind the legal and social benefits that would insure the protection for our local and overseas Filipino domestic workers.”

‘Watershed event’

Convention No. 189, adopted on June 16 this year, is seen as a major breakthrough for persons who work inside other people’s households.

In a New York Times article published on Saturday (US time), Nisha Varia said, “The treaty was a watershed event. There is now a global consensus that these women deserve the same rights as other workers. All the government involved in this conversation will be under pressure to examine their labor laws,” Nisha Varia of the Human Rights Watch (HRW) said.

For DOLE officials, the Domestic Workers’ Convention is “a major victory for Filipino domestic workers.”

Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) head Carlos Cao Jr. told the New York Times that the convention is “a landmark accomplishment,” but acknowledged that “you don’t change cultures overnight.”

The convention, which said “domestic work continues to be undervalued and invisible,” provides household workers with the same basic labor rights as others, such as:
freedom of association;
right to collective bargaining;
decent working or living conditions;
normal hours of work;
rest periods; and
paid annual leave.

‘Particularly vulnerable’

As domestic work happens behind “closed doors,” reports of abuses continually surround this field of work, which the ILO said had a “particularly vulnerable” sector of women and girls—most of whom are either migrants or members of “disadvantaged communities.”

Varia, a senior researcher at HRW, did a study in 2008 that looked into abuses against Asian domestic workers in Saudi Arabia.

The study titled “As If I Am Not Human” was divided into 12 chapters, which included:
the women’s reasons for migration;
scales of abuses on the women;
legal measures and gaps; and
recommendations to Saudi Arabia and other governments and organizations concerned.

Ban on domestic workers

Meanwhile, an indefinite ban on Filipino domestic workers was imposed by the government of Saudi Arabia, after the House Committee on Overseas Workers’ Affairs (COWA) called for a temporary stop to the deployment of Filipino domestic helpers in the oil-rich country.

Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Labor announced months later that they “will stop issuing work visas for domestic workers [from] the Philippines and Indonesia” starting July 2, after the two countries “imposed stricter conditions on prospective Saudi employers.”

The Philippine Embassy in Riyadh clarified days later that the ban only covers new work visas.

However, the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) reported that Saudi Arabia suspended processing the work papers of 7, 000 domestic helpers since March.

Committee chair and Akbayan Rep. Walden Bello said some of the abuses that Filipino domestic workers experience are:
the withholding of their salaries;
the confiscation of identification documents; and
contract substitution, where a domestic helper is “sold” to another employer.

Statistics

According to an article from the ILO Decent Work Team and Office for the Caribbean website, ILO estimates show that there are about 53 million domestic workers, with around 83 percent of them women or girls.

However, the organization admits that since many of these workers are unregistered, number can rise to as high as 100 million.

Meanwhile, POEA data showed that 96, 583 were deployed in 2010 under the category “Domestic Helpers and Related Household Workers.”

Only 1, 703 of these were men.

Hong Kong is the top destination for Filipino domestic helpers, with 28, 602 deployed workers in 2010. Completing the list of top five destinations are:
Kuwait (21, 554);
United Arab Emirates (13, 184);
Saudi Arabia (11, 582); and
Qatar (9, 937).

According to January 2011 data from the Bureau of Labor and Employment Statistics, almost 2 million private households in the Philippines have employed persons. – VVP, GMA News