HAYDEE CARO, 43, left her 11-year-old son to a relative in 2016 to earn a living as a domestic worker in Buraydah province in Saudi Arabia.
Although she was hired by a licensed recruiter in Manila, she was turned over to a Saudi recruiter, not accredited by the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA).
Her first employer was a police officer with a wife who made her do heavy house chores for 11 hours a day and fed her only frozen peas. After three months of physical pain, hunger and humiliation, she fell ill.
Haydee, a single mother, asked her male employer to send her to the Saudi recruiter so she could return home. Instead, she was sent to jail and accused of stealing valuables.
After spending four days in jail, she was turned over to another Saudi employer. Her second employer treated her well, but she remained too sickly to perform work.
The second employer brought her to a parking lot to meet another Saudi national. “I knew I was being sold to another employer as I could see the payoffs while inside the car.” Haydee was then asked to move to another car—that of her third employer.
Haydee suffered her worst nightmare in the hands of her third employer—a hospital employee with his wife.
“Everytime I came out of the shower, my male employer would grope me. Many times, he would barge into my room while I slept and try to rape me.”
Haydee threatened to tell her male employer’s wife and file a complaint, but such threats did not stop the sexual molestation.
“I finally told the wife about her husband’s abuse.”
Shortly after, the male employer arrived home with three men who asked her to come with them.
It was October 19 last year, Haydee remembered that date well as she feared being gang-raped. She excused herself to go to the restroom but she locked herself until her employers called the police.
She was sent to jail again but this time, she was allowed to call her son, who then contacted the Center for Migrants Advocacy (CMA), which facilitated her repatriation.
In an interview, Haydee vowed to fight for justice for all the abuses she suffered from her three Saudi employers. She is now seeking payment of six months worth of salary as she was only paid once by the second employer.
Risk of violence, abuse
“Women domestic workers are among those at risk [of] violence and abuse, because they are women,” said Melissa Alvarado, program manager of UN Women.
The European Union (EU) and the United Nations have embarked on a five-year initiative (2018-2022) through the Spotlight Initiative to eradicate Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG).
The program is aimed to achieve gender equality and women’s empowerment under the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.
Last May, the ILO and UN Women conducted a consultative dialogue in Manila on “Safe and Fair: Realizing Women Migrant Workers’ Rights and Opportunities in the Asean Region”.
The program is part of the Spotlight Initiative that seeks to ensure women migrant workers are better protected by gender-sensitive labor migration policies; and to make women migrant workers less vulnerable to violence and trafficking and benefit from quality services. The program also seeks to improve data, knowledge and attitudes on the rights and contributions of women migrant workers.
Alvarado hopes that the Spotlight Initiative will improve the situation of women domestic workers, particularly those from the Philippines.
The Philippines is one of the world’s top four sending countries of migrant domestic workers, along with Uganda, Kenya and Indonesia.
According to the POEA, an average of 86,121 Filipinos flew abroad every year for jobs as domestic workers between 1992 to 2015.
One in every five overseas Filipino workers, or 2.067 million of the estimated 10 million OFWs, is a domestic worker and every year many of them suffer from terrible abuse.
Majority of domestic workers are female and working in the households of Middle East countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
Khalid Hassan, ILO country director, said in his speech at the consultative dialogue that the Safe and Fair project under Spotlight Initiative gives “a gender lens into migration policies and seeks to strengthen national laws, institutions and programs to combat gender-based violence including trafficking in persons and discrimination.”
He said abuses suffered by women migrant workers include: single contract period; debt bondage, withholding of wages from the original contract, and lack of knowledge on money management and savings.
Breakdown in recruitment process
The former chief of the POEA, Hans Cacdac, admits that the tragic side of overseas employment is the breakdown in the recruitment process.
He said preventive measures are not fully implemented since the recruiters’ responsibility ends when the name of the domestic worker is submitted for processing at the POEA.
Cacdac said ethical recruitment should be pushed where recruiters conduct due diligence in preparing the workers physically and emotionally. He said the workers’ skills set should match the job and recruiters must ensure the workers have full knowledge and awareness of the culture, language and household of the employer.
The Philippines has signed labor agreements with destination countries such as UAE and Qatar, but domestic workers are not covered. It is negotiating agreements with Bahrain and Kuwait.
Lucrative business
Filipino employer Lito Soriano assailed the labor agreement signed with Saudi Arabia in 2013 that resulted in the recruitment of domestic workers, a lucrative business for Saudi recruiters.
He said under the agreement, Saudi employers have to pay recruiters $3,000 to $5,000 to hire a domestic worker. Filipino domestic workers are preferred since they speak English, are hardworking and easily adapt to different cultures. But these Filipino domestic workers end up getting a meager salary of $200 to $500 a month.
Since employers have to pay a huge amount to hire a Filipino domestic worker, Soriano said “the agreement has created an oppressive environment for domestic workers as it became a money-making business both for Saudi recruiters and their Filipino counterparts.”
Meanwhile, beneath the stories of abuse and misery, the practical side of risking Filipino workers’ safety continues to make an impact: cash remittances from Filipino workers abroad continue to buoy the economy hitting a record P28.1 billion in 2017, 4.3 percent higher than the P26.9 billion in 2016.
“But working abroad is not a ticket to a better life, especially domestic workers,” Cacdac pointed out.
Nilim Baruah, ILO senior migration specialist, said that while the Philippines has ratified important labor conventions to protect migrant workers, various forms of abuses against Filipino domestic workers continue.
Destination countries like Singapore and Middle East countries do not cover protection of migrant workers in their respective labor laws, though reports of Filipinos suffering abuse in the former are few and far between.
“We need to pressure these [destination] countries to ratify conventions to protect migrant workers,” said Baruah.
While Haydee had to deal with emotional and physical bruises caused by her abusive employers, she considers it more painful to come home to her son empty-handed.
“I could not even send him to school and had to borrow for food just to get by.” A cruel cycle, indeed, for a mother to get back to square one, with nothing but scars to show for it.
It’s stories like Haydee’s that prod policy-makers in the Philippines and global agencies to keep searching for ways to protect migrant workers wherever they are found. After all, it’s obvious the exodus will be sustained for many more years for as long as people chase dreams of a better life while evil lurks in many corners of the world, ready to turn such dreams into nightmares.
Image credits: Paul Hilton/Bloomberg News