Manila GFMD: A Global Forum on Modern Day Slavery and Dehumanization of Migrants

Hosting this year’s 2nd Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) is no less than a major exporter of human labor---the government of the Philippines. Ranking second to Mexico, the Arroyo administration boasts of more than 10 million migrant Filipino workers, most of whom are women who were forced to leave their families behind to seek better opportunities abroad and provide for their needs. More than ever, this current administration eyes this event as an opportunity to unrelentingly push the rummage sale of Filipino  overseas workers especially women.

Being the mouthpiece of the first world countries and foreign monopolies, GFMD plunges Third World countries to prop up globalization policies and institutionalize profitable money-making migration measures in the face of rapid global financial meltdown. Under this self-serving agenda, they would ensure a plethora of cheap labor from poor countries and rake in super profits from remittances of migrant workers. Consequently, migrant workers will be treated no differently from any other goods for trade making them subject to exploitation and abuse indistinguishable to “modern-day slavery”.

Indeed, the plight of migrant workers has no room under the GFMD. In the first place, it was never designed to address the pressing concerns and cases of violence against women, trafficking, rape, abuse and even death. It was never meant to ease their burdens and resolve poor working conditions nor to hear out legitimate concerns. The protection and empowerment that it speaks of in its central theme is exclusive only to its own “huge worldwide business” even at the expense of migrant workers’ rights. As long as its mantra is labor export, it will only spawn the increased vulnerabilities of women to abuse, violence, rights violations and exploitation.     

Similarly, the Arroyo administration has no genuine concern to champion the interests of the Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) since it values the latter as mere dollar remittances that would save her bankrupt economic policies. It seeks more to intensify its labor export policy to cover up for the neo -liberal bankcrupt economic policies, for the massive displacements of communities because of its militarist anti-terror policies.  Arroyo’s twisted framework of development further intensifies the displacement, commodification of migrant labor, dehumanization, and enslavement of migrant workers. Clearly, this policy will only aggravate the plight of migrant Filipino workers.

Gabriela Women’s Party (GWP) joins the call of the International Assembly of Migrants and Refugees (IAMR) in rejecting the GFMD. The IAMR manifests the real score of our migrant workers and depicts the reality that the Arroyo administration continues to quell. Together with the grassroots migrants, GWP will continue to uphold and defend the democratic rights of our OFWs and our women workers and their families.  ###