Nurturing Wings or Clipping them Off: The Philippine Approach to Female Labor Migration and a Potentially Redeeming Role for the Commission on Human Rights

• Main Author: Salcedo, Emily Sanchez
• Format: text
• Published: Animo Repository 2016
• Subjects: law; civil rights; discrimination; human rights; labor; employment; gender; social welfare; workers' compensation; Civil Rights and Discrimination; Commercial Law; Human Rights Law; Labor and Employment Law; Law; Law and Gender; Social Welfare Law; Workers' Compensation Law
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/res_cbrd/30; https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/context/res_cbrd/article/1023/viewcontent/cbrd_vol4_num1.pdf
• Institution: De La Salle University

The large-scale migration of Filipino workers started in the 1970’s as inadequate local employment and livelihood opportunities pointed to overseas opportunities in the booming economy of oil-rich countries in the Middle East. Though initially dominated by male construction workers and seafarers, female migrant workers, mostly in the health care professions, in domestic services and in the entertainment industry, followed suit and, in the most recent available statistical report, have even slightly outnumbered the men. As of the end of 2014, 50.43% of the 2.32 million overseas Filipino workers are women. Collectively, these overseas workers sent about 27 billion dollars in remittances in 2014, equivalent to 10% of the country’s gross domestic product. The Philippine economy has been kept afloat in the past decades by the said remittances prompting the government to hail overseas Filipino workers as the country’s modern-day heroes.