P H I L I P P I N E S
Rape Case Puts Migrant Workers Back in National Psyche
by Marites Sison
MANILA — The plight of its migrant workers was back in the Philippines' national psyche in September, following Malaysia's wave of mass deportations of illegal Filipino workers from its eastern Sabah state.
The deportations, which peaked in recent weeks, has resulted in the death of 12 children and the rape of a 13-year-old deportee, whose case has fueled anger toward Malaysia, a country that is home to tens of thousands of Filipino migrant workers.
Not since 1995, when Filipino domestic worker Flor Contemplacion was hanged in Singapore for a murder that many here thought she was innocent of, has there been such a display of national outrage here.
Filipino legislators have even threatened to renew the diplomatic row with Malaysia over Sabah, which the Philippines claimed as its territory in the sixties. Activist groups have been holding protest rallies depicting Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad as "an evil dictator".
The reports of the sexual abuse of the 13-year-old girl, identified by social workers only as "Tsina", have fuelled this rise of public anger.
The girl was among 500 Filipinos being deported to the southern Philippines, just a boat ride from Sabah when the rape, reportedly by a Malaysian policeman at a migrants' detention centre there, took place. Doctors here have also confirmed that rape took place.
In response, Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo wrote a personal letter to Mahathir, expressing her "personal outrage and that of the Filipino people" over the rape.
She called for a halt to the deportations, which were part of Malaysia's ongoing crackdown on some 380,000 illegal migrants, until more humane and orderly repatriation is in place.
Looking to soothe tensions between the neighbours, which come on the heels of a similar row between Malaysia and Indonesia, Mahathir on Sep. 5 promised to hold "a swift and thorough investigation to verify the (rape) allegation".
The Filipino deportees are among the foreign workers without valid documents who were jailed shortly after the Malaysian government's deadline for voluntary repatriation expired in August.
Most of the undocumented Filipinos were Muslims from the islands of Tawi-Tawi, Sulu, and Bongao in the southern Philippines.
Women's rights and labour activists here say that the cases of Tsina and other rape victims in Sabah are not entirely new and are not confined to Malaysia.
Former Senator Ernesto Herrera, a labour leader, cited a 1995 report by Tenaganita, a Kuala Lumpur-based group that works with migrants, which outlined the inhuman conditions inside detention camps for illegal workers based on interviews with 300 ex-detainees.
Citing the report, he said a description of conditions include "physical abuse and torture, insufficient food and water, lack of medical care, sexual harassment of female migrants".
The stories told by these deportees bring into focus the problems that migrant women workers and their families face worldwide.
"If there is any lesson to be learned here, it is that our first and overriding priority in foreign policy is the care and protection of our overseas workers, legal or illegal," wrote columnist Conrad de Quiros of the English-language daily 'Philippine Daily Inquirer'.
"It is a matter of national survival. We have three million foreign workers spread throughout the world who are keeping this country afloat," he said. "They brought in 41.6 billion U.S. dollars over the last decade alone, the only thing that kept the peso from turning into Mickey Mouse money."
The International Labour Organisation (ILO) blames legal and illegal intermediaries, recruitment agencies, overseas employment promoters, and manpower suppliers for the increase in labour migration not just in the Philippines, but in Asia.
Others fall prey to illegal recruiters and still others resort to prostitution to stave off deportation, as depicted in some undocumented cases involving Filipino women in Sabah.
"Women migrant workers are more susceptible to maltreatment, physical and sexual abuse. Most prone are the domestic helpers and those in the entertainment trade," said Loretta Ann Rosales, a legislator.
According to a 1998 survey submitted by the U.S. Congress, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait "stand out as the places where overseas Filipinas suffered most human rights abuses," Rosales said.
Yet addressing these abuses is not always easy for labour-exporting countries like the Philippines, especially without an international instrument that will compel host countries to acknowledge migrant workers' rights and treat them humanely.
The Philippines does have bilateral agreements with many nations. But "the government must strengthen relations with host countries, not grovel before them," argued De Quiros. "After all, our countries derive mutual benefit from overseas Filipino workers."
