Unions of the Philippines are concerned about the illegal trafficking of domestic workers, said Philippine Trade Union Assistant Secretary-General Shirley Fekwe-Yurong.
She added, on the sidelines of her participation in the Domestic Workers Conference, that work is underway to launch a plan that includes professionalizing domestic workers as well as training them before they decide to travel abroad.
She continued, “Once they decide, they will go through orientation programs that are supposed to be geared toward the culture of the country they are going to and current laws, with the aim of reducing the incidence of problems.”
She pointed out that when a worker decides to travel, she obtains a tourist visa, perhaps with the help of family or friends in the destination country, such as Bahrain, but when she obtains this tourist visa and her intention is to work in the destination country, she has exposed herself to legal problems.
She added, “We are actually pushing for the appointment of one of the agencies operating in Bahrain that specializes in supplying manpower to be a partner with one of the employment agencies in the Philippines, for the purpose of sharing responsibilities and penalties if a problem occurs or the law is violated, as at the present time one agency in Bahrain deals with With many agencies in the Philippines, when the problem occurs, only the Philippine agency is punished, and the Bahraini agency does not last long.”
She called on institutions such as trade unions and other civil society organizations, the group and employment agencies to work side by side in order to protect workers and give them what they deserve, noting that 41% of Filipino workers abroad work in primary professions and these professions are the most at risk as labor standards are not met. Exist or not, and this is where monitoring gets very difficult.
