LABOUR: Problems of Being Asian and A Migrant Worker

By Feizal Samath Reprint | | Print |

Feizal Samath

COLOMBO, Oct 9 1997 (IPS) - Participants from eight countries, supplying migrant workers to the Middle East and the rest of the world, are meeting in Sri Lanka’s capital to find ways and means of protecting workers from exploitation by employers.

Representatives from non-governmental agencies in Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia, Hong Kong, the Philippines are expected to devise a common strategy to deal with these problems that confront workers and their families.

The three-day international conference on migrant workers ends on Thursday and is titled “Role of Trade Unions and NGOs in protecting the rights of migrant workers.” It is organised by the Asian American Free Labour Institute.

Speakers spoke of common problems faced by workers like lack of human rights, being forced into prostitution, slavery, non payment of wages, non-compliance of contract rules by the employer, harassment, physical abuse, and so on.

Most of the nationals from the participating countries go to the Middle East, and it is the female worker who suffers.

Malaysia’s representative focussed on a different problem, however. Arumugam Sivananthan, acting finance secretary of the Malaysian Trade Union Congress (MTUC), an umbrella group, said that social problems created as a result of an influx of foreign workers, were causing some concern to local residents.

He said the number of robberies by foreign workers was on the rise. So were other criminal acts while increased marriages with local girls, was adding to the problem.

Sivananthan said that trade union groups were urging the government to also protect local workers against employers who prefer foreigners because they are cheap.

His comments were perhaps the lone voice against foreign workers whereas most of the participants at the Colombo meeting focussed on the problems faced by migrant workers in the countries they work in.

Malaysia is in an unenviable position of being both in labour-supplying and labour-receiving. Sivananthan said there are large numbers of Malaysians working abroad, mostly in Europe and Japan while about 30,000 are employed in neighbouring Singapore. The number of foreign workers in Malaysia is about 1.7 million.

Most of them come from India, Bangladesh and the Philippines, which provides mostly domestic helps. “We feel that the rate of migrant workers is rising too fast for Malaysia’s comfort and in relation to the country’s growth rates,” Sivananthan said.

He said the government should ensure local employers pay a decent wage to stem the flow of Malaysians abroad. “Our people get the same jobs abroad. If employers pay reasonable wages and better conditions instead of hiring cheap foreign labour, Malaysians will stay back.”

“What happens if there is a recession? What do we do with foreign workers then?” he asked. Sivananthan said that one of the main concerns apart from the social issues, was lowering of wage levels since Malaysia didn’t have a minimum wage structure.

He urged the government to carry out a comprehensive research and survey on the needs of labour in the country. He said unionisation was low in Malaysia, covering only 10 percent of the country’s eight-million work force.

Some of the issues and suggestions that evolved on the second day of the meeting including the declaration of a special United Nations day for migrant workers, lobby for workers’ rights, strong trade union action, to improve mental and physical condition of workers, among others.

Sri Lanka’s Suraj Dandeniya, president of the Federation of Licensed Foreign Employment Agencies of Sri Lanka, urged the possible “laying down of ‘common standards’ for migrant women labour”. He said that where housemaid recruitment is concerned, Sri Lanka is faced with conditions that prevail due to its social, cultural and physical standards, that cannot be kept on par with the Philippines or even Indonesia.

“The social layer from which our housemaids are drawn from, is the most handicapped layer, to put it very politely. They very often opt to survive at the mercy of the ’employer’ … They have very little or social background that could make them familiar with the modern household,” he said.

Dandeniya said these workers, except for the raw labour they could impart, could not boast of other positive qualities that could make them better bargains in a complex market that pays better salaries, perhaps with better privileges to more competent

labour especially from the Philippines and to a certain extent housemaids from Indonesia.

He said this meant, Sri Lanka entered a market that is not considered profitable by the Filipino maids. “We enter the market at its lowest end, with a salary of 100 dollars while the Philippines enjoys a 200 dollars a month market.”

The Philippines is one of the largest exporters of labour, with estimates ranging from between five to six million migrant workers. Alexander Aguilar, national spokesman for the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) said violence against Filipino migrant workers, 55 percent of whom are women, has reached highly alarming proportions.

Celebrated cases of workers (mostly women) being raped, being murdered or falsely accused of various crimes had government officials receiving a lot of criticism for their failure to provide the workers protection, he said.

Aguilar said that as a result of the 1995 Flor Contemplacion execution in Singapore, there is a reported decline in the deployment of Filipino workers abroad with the figure falling to 660,122 last year from 719,602 in 1994. As of June 1997, deployment stood at 357,196, he said quoting official statistics.

Aguilar said that despite the large contribution made by migrant workers to government coffers, the TUCP believes that the use of Filipino workers abroad should be progressively limited. “TUCP is especially concerned for the unskilled workers and domestic helpers who are most vulnerable to abuse and exploitation.”

However, he conceded,due to the current state of the Philippine labour market, the low wages and lack of social benefits, the idea remains utopic. He said the TUCP was pushing for appropriate measures involving trade unions in tripartite consultation in both host and sending countries. Indonesian representatives raised the problem of illegal foreign recruitment agencies and how they dupe local women.

Indian delegate, Upala Devi Banerjee of the New Delhi-based Asian Network of Women in Communication called for a better implementation of laws to curb prostitution and child sex trafficking. “The laws are there. But sadly, there is no implementation,” she said.

She spoke of organised, systematic trafficking of girls for profit which accounts for the highest number of girl prostitutes in India. Young virgin girls are more in demand as they are not at risk of being infected with AIDS or other deadly viruses.

“Besides a myth exists in India that intercourse with a young girl can cure a person with STDs (sexually transmitted diseases) and other venereal diseases. Thus there are instances in which 20,000 rupees (570 dollars) may be paid by an old rich customer for a single night to go to bed with a girl as young as 11 years,” she said.