Date: Tue, 2 Jul 96 16:40:17 EDT
From: boddhisatva <kbevans-AT-panix.com>
Subject: [indwrk-AT-web.apc.org: Philippines/women organising: prost]




		I thought you all might appreciate this:



                ---------------

Date: 29 Jun 1996 16:33:49 -0500 (EST)
Reply-To: Conference "iww.news" <iww-news-AT-igc.apc.org>
From: indwrk-AT-web.apc.org
Subject: Philippines/women organising: prost
To: Recipients of conference <iww-news-AT-igc.apc.org>

From: indwrk ( )

/* Written 9:11 AM May 2, 1996 by 100666.1443-AT-CompuServe.COM in
web:lets.women */ /* ---------- "Philippines/women organising: prost"
---------- */ From: "Int. Viewpoint" <100666.1443-AT-CompuServe.COM> Subject:
Philippines/women organising: prostitutes and migrants

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Philippines /women

12,600 characters

Women organising: Prostitution and Migration

Penny Duggan discusses overseas contract labour and sexploitation with
four Philippine socialist feminists

International Viewpoint: Why do so many Philippine women, like Sarah
Balabagan, have to go abroad to work? 

Fatima: Mindanao women are traditionally supposed to stay at home and take
care of their houses, their backyard and their husbands. They are not
allowed to conduct economic activities. But, because of the very hard life
that they experience, many women are forced to leave the country. For
example, Sarah Balabagan was only about 15 years old when she was forced
to go out and earn a living for her family

Lorena: At the moment the official minimum wage is 2,700 pesos but the
cost of living is 7-8,000 pesos. So 70-80% of the population is below the
poverty line. This explains why peasants, workers, the urban poor, and
indigenous people can easily decide to go abroad to be domestic helpers or
sex workers (prostitutes) to earn a living for their families. Also, in
urban poor communities, about 50% of the population do not have regular
jobs. Women are the hardest hit, because it is their job to ensure a whole
education for the family. So in urban poor communities you can see even
pregnant women and children working twelve to fourteen hours in dumpsites
to be able to get food for their families. 

In peasant communities landlessness is a major problem. Because without
land there is absolutely no livelihood. But nowadays, aside from the
problems of having no food and no regular land to work on, peasants face
'development aggression': the slow demolition of peasant communities in
the interest of government infrastructure projects. This is a problem for
peasant women and men. 

Luisa: Another very current problem for workers in general and women
workers in particular is the implementation of neo-liberal policies like
the 'Philippines 2000' project of President Ramos. Last year more than
50,000 women were laid off in the garment, shoes and underwear industries. 
One solution for the families concerned is to look for oversees contracts,
but these are not that easily available. One can see the predicament of
these women: the family livelihood depends on their wages, and at the same
time they are unable to use their skills. Becoming an overseas contract
worker (OCW) often seems the easiest way out. You can imagine that this is
crowding the market for domestic helpers, and resulting in lower wages for
everybody. 

IV: What sort of work do they do overseas. Do they really use their skills
and Philippine qualifications? 

Mila: In Philippine society women suffer from discriminatory practises and
lesser social opportunities to be able to take well-paying jobs. Mainly
this is because of poverty: women have less opportunities to follow higher
education, so those women who leave the country to work end up in more
oppressive and exploitative work. Usually as domestic helpers with a very
low wage, or as part of the sex industry (they go out of the country as
'cultural workers' but actually end up as dancers in Japanese or European
sex clubs). They are not given any protection by our government, or the
government of their country of residence. Especially when they are
'illegal'. Many women are forced to leave the country with an 'illegal'
status, just to get a job and earn something. 

IV: What about the mail order brides ? 

Mila: The mail order bride phenomenon is another front of the sex
industry. Our government is not doing anything serious, or giving
attention to this problem. Indirectly, the government promotes the export
of cheap labour. It does not matter to them what will happen to these
women when they go out of the country. 

There are of course some real marriages [where Westerners have contacted
Philippine brides through agencies]. But many women end up in sex clubs In
many cases their passports are confiscated or they are persuaded to take
another name, which makes them 'illegal'. They cannot just return to the
Philippines if they find problems in the new country, or with the men they
were supposed to marry. 

IV: President Ramos' sister led the Philippine delegation to the UN
Conference on Women's Rights. But you seem to be saying that the
government does nothing to protect the image and dignity of Philippine
women? 

Fatima: Before and after the Beijing UN conference there has been no
substantial protection by the Philippine government of its women
constituents.  In the first place, workplace discrimination is still
prevalent. Employers still only seek prospective male employees, because
it will be less expensive to provide them with benefits. Because, as a
result of our struggle, many women have the right to maternity leave and
other specific benefits for women. 

In politics women have less value than men. If a women runs for an elected
post she will always be treated as someone who is not fit for the
position; because she's a woman; because she has no background; or because
she has no educational attainment

Since the time of Marcos, through the Cory Aquino period and now under
Ramos, the regime has always espoused some kind of industrialisation. The
whole Medium-Term Development Plan is based on a concept of fast-track
industrialisation. This is basically import dependent, export-oriented and
debt-driven. It relies very much on debt to make it work. 

Agriculture has to be pushed aside, which will result in massive land
conversion. Agricultural areas are being converted into tourist spots or
industrial, commercial or housing zones. The result is a haemorrhage of
people >From these rural communities to the cities, expecting to find work
there. Women are doubly or triply victimised in this whole process. They
are victimised by their own partners who are men. They are victimised in
the society because they are women. And they are victimised by
capitalists, because they can be used to promote something. 

For example, in farming communities, woman are not counted as working
hands. They may labour on the farms, but they are not computed as a
working person. When they sell their produce, it is counted as the income
of the husbands. Women migrants to the towns are stuck in a very sub-human
situation. They have to eke out a living for their children and their
husbands because there is no land to farm. In most cases, these women take
odd jobs, which do not develop them as persons and as women. They resent
this. 

The expansion of the female workforce provides industry with the
opportunity to blackmail us:  'if you don't like your job, you can leave!'
they say. Because there are so many people looking for work, and women are
the last to be hired and the first to be fired. 

Many women migrants face torture or rape, because in the desperation of
seeking employment, they engage in illegal practices. For example, Sarah
Balabagan was not supposed to leave the country because she was only 15.
But they somehow transformed her birth certificate and she passed as a
28-year old. 

Lorena: During the war between Kuwait and Iraq, there were many stories of
Filipinas being raped or killed by the warring armies. This led to many
protests and demands that Filipinas be returned to the Philippines. The
Foreign Affairs secretary's response was to say 'you don't have to
complain. Just relax and enjoy it!'

>From time to time, the international media picks up a story about
violence against Filipina migrant workers. Then the whole country can
protest against, say, Singapore treatment of Filipinas. But, of course,
people are also very angry about the way our own government neglects the
rights and welfare of Filipina workers abroad. 

The government call the overseas workers the new martyrs and the new
heroes of the Philippines. But when the latest scandal over mistreatment
of Filipinas in Singapore erupted, our Labour Secretary said that, on a
scale of one to ten, he would rate Singapore nine. He implied that
Filipino staff there were doing very well, when in fact there was national
indignation over this story. And if it wasn't for protests by ordinary
Filipinos, the story would never have surfaced. 

The Philippine elite believe that we should welcome foreign investment
with open arms and open legs. In other words, allowing not only investment
in the Philippine economy but also in Philippine women. Investment here
goes hand in hand with 'tourism'. So does the policy of sending contract
workers abroad. Not only in the Middle East, but also in Japan. Many
Philippine women go to Japan to work as entertainers in bars, clubs, and
restaurants, entertaining Japanese men, particularly business executives.
These clubs, in Japan's entertainment districts, are operated by the
yakuzas (Japanese Mafia). Many women's organisations protested, because so
many young Filipina women were being killed by the yakuzas. So the
government was forced to stop sending Filipina women to Japan. But this
ban only lasted a few months. Because many Filipinas really want to go to
Japan, even if they realise the risks, because there is no opportunity to
get a job in the Philippines. 

Q. How much do migrant women earn abroad? 

Luisa: Domestic helpers earn from $US 150 per month in Saudi Arabia to
$600 in Israel. But the average is about $200. For this, they do all kinds
of domestic work. Some also sew. 

Fatima: In Taiwan domestic helpers earn about $US 300 dollars per month,
but they don't work for only one family: in one day a domestic helper
could be working as much as 18 hours. There are many cases where Filipinas
arrive in Taiwan and Singapore, but immediately want to come home once
they see the miserable conditions. Some come home crazy, because they can
no longer take the very hard life they experienced abroad. 

'Entertainers' in Japan, are supposed to work only for six months. But to
get a contract they are supposed to have dance lessons, and pay a fee to
the employment agencies. This means investing $US 2,500, just to get a six
month contract. Once they are in Japan, their legal job could bring them
as much as % 60,000 a night, but they work as prostitutes to earn as much
money as possible. At the end of their six month contract they hope to buy
a house and land, and pay what they must in order to get a second contract
in Japan. 

IV: Sexploitation of Filipina women is not just an overseas problem. What
about sex tourism and prostitution in the Philippines? 

Mila: The US military bases have contributed enormously to the
proliferation of female and male prostitution in the Philippines.
Communities of prostitutes developed outside Subic Bay base. Almost as if
they were officially employed by the base to 'service the sexual needs of
US servicemen'. This process stopped when the base was closed down by
volcanic activity. But it did not stop prostitution, because the
prostitutes have no other work opportunities. They were not included in
the official, US-financed programme for conversion of the local economy,
because they were an unofficial part of the base system. Many prostitutes
moved to Burokay, a beach resort in central Visayaz, Dabao, in the south
of the Philippines, and many other tourist spots. 

This not only promoted the culture of prostitution, but it also becomes
the channel for drugs, because US bases are not inspected by Philippines
customs. 

This migration also became a new channel for AIDS and other sexually
transmitted diseases. It was only later established that AIDS is already
rampant in the Philippines. This awareness is a testimony to some very
brave women, like D. Cortez, who brought the AIDS issue into the open
because she was a victim herself. She later died of AIDS. 

We don't know how many people are really infected with AIDS but 80% of
documented victims are women, and most of the others are gay men. 

In August 1995 an Australian support group exposed sex tourism in the
Philippines, particularly the flow of Australian men exploiting Filipino
children as sex objects. This well-documented exposi has led to the
investigation of some Australians' activities in the Philippines. It was a
very positive initiative. But it created an uproar in the Philippines
Senate, because these things are happening right under their noses, but
they are not able to stop them. Our politicians are the unwittingly
culprits of all this sex tourism. 

IV: President Ramos has clashed with the Church over contraception and
abortion

Mila: The issue was certainly not the government's sincere recognition of
women's rights to abortion or birth control! The church opposes the
government's attitude to poverty. The state encourages artificial means of
birth control as a 'solution' to poverty. The Department of Health does
not present the more important question of ensuring healthy foods for
children who suffer from malnutrition or death from poverty!  When the
Ramos administration proposed contraception as a solution to poverty, it
was a sort of challenge to the Catholic church. Of course, like in other
countries, the Catholic church in the Philippines supports a traditional
outlook on women. But what happened was a political battle to win the
support of the population on the question of artificial birth control and
pro-life policies. 

The Catholic Church never supported Ramos in his presidential campaign. He
is, of course, a Protestant. And the Catholic Church views the Protestants
as adversaries. 

Luisa: But this is not to denigrate the many women, many of them stalwarts
of the Catholic Church, who came out into the open, who criticised the
church and other pro-life forces strongly. This did not develop into a
mass movement, but it was a real outcry against these conservative ideas.
Most of these women are consciously feminist. 

IV: How justified is the government's concern about population control? 

Mila: From the point of view of the people's movement the government and
church concern with birth control really deviates from the main issue in
the country. Even the National Economic Development Authority, which
manages the Philippine economy, agrees that, if only we had a just
society, with a more just distribution, the Philippines would be able to
give a decent life to everybody. We have abundant natural resources that
could provide food for everybody and we have many skilled workers and
professionals who could give a push to a very high level of development of
our country. 

In the 1960s we were next to Japan in terms of development because of our
natural and human resources. Today, because of the problems in the economy
and politics of the country, we are second from bottom in South East Asia
in terms of poverty. Sustaining the growing population is, of course, a
problem, but the real issue is who controls the natural resources and the
economy of a country in which more than 50 million of the population live
below the poverty line? 

End of interview

Penny Dugan of International Viewpoint magazine talked to Fatima (People's
Communist Party in Mindanao), Luisa and Mila (Revolutionary Workers' Party
in Visayaz), and Lorena (Marxist-Leninist Organisation of Luzon). 

French and German translations of this interview may be available by the
time you read this. Contact us for details. 

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	peace






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