Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Box 5.2
The 2012 World Social Forum on Migration (WSFM),
Manila (Philippines)
The WSFM is a space for democratic debate, reflection, formulation of proposals,
exchange of experiences, and articulation of action plans among social movements,
networks, NGOs and other CSOs that are opposed to neoliberal globalization and
the restriction of citizenship rights, civil rights, and political/economic/social/cultural
rights of migrants, displaced persons, refugees, and stateless persons.
Extracts from Walden Bello's keynote speech: Labour Trafficking
as the Modern-Day Slave Trade
This gap between increasing demand and restricted supply has created an explosive
situation, one that has been filled by a global system of trafficking in human beings
that can in many respects be compared to the slave trade of the 16th century. The
dynamics of the current system of trade in repressed labor is illustrated in the case
of the Philippines. This country is one of the great labor exporters of the world. Some
10 percent of its total population and 22 percent its working age population are now
migrant workers in other countries. With remittances totaling some $20 billion a year,
the Philippines placed fourth as a recipient of remittances, after China, India, and
Mexico.
In its effort to curb this free market in virtual slavery or to prevent workers from
going intocountries where their physical security would be in great danger like
Afghanistan or Iraq, the Philippine government requires government-issued permits
for workers to be able to leave or it has imposed deployment bans to some countries.
However, labor recruiters, which are often in cahoots not only with Middle East
employers but also with the US Defense Department and US private contractors,
have found ways of getting around these regulations.
The predominance of women among the workers being trafficked to the Middle
East has created a situation rife with sexual abuse, and a system whereby labor
trafficking and sexual trafficking are increasingly intersecting. Here is an excerpt from
a report of the House Committee on Overseas Workers following the visit of some
members to Saudi Arabia that I led in January 2011:
Rape is the ever-present specter that haunts Filipino domestic workers in Saudi
Arabia. . . . Rape and sexual abuse is more frequent than the raw Embassy
statistics reveal, probably coming to 15 to 20 per cent of cases reported for
domestics in distress. If one takes these indicators as roughly representative of
unreported cases of abuse of domestic workers throughout the kingdom, then
one cannot but come to the conclusion that rape and sexual abuse is common.
I would go further and say that there is a strong element of sex trafficking in
the migration of Filipino women into the Middle East given the expectation,
especially in many Gulf households, that providing sex to the master of the
household is seen as part of the domestic worker's tasks.
Source: World Social Forum (2012) (
www.wsfm2012.org
).
