Building Stories, Breaking Chains: Migrant women and creative forms of resistance at the fourth Asia Pacific Feminist Forum (APFF)
Last September 12 to 14, the Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD) held its fourth Asia Pacific Feminist Forum (APFF) in Chiang Mai, Thailand. The conference gathered feminists, women activists, and various women’s organizations to discuss issues of women in the region in the context of broader and complex structural obstacles they face – neoliberalism, imperialism, and patriarchy.
On the first day of APFF, APMM and its partners – the International Migrants Alliances (IMA), GABRIELA Hong Kong, United Filipinos in Hong Kong, Indonesian Migrant Workers Union (INWU), Kabar Bumi, Beranda Migran, Mission for Migrant Workers (MFMW), and the TransAsia Sisters Association of Taiwan, held a workshop tackling the relevance of ILO C189 (Domestic Workers Convention of 2011) and C190 (Violence and Harassment Convention of 2019) in the lives of migrant women in Asia Pacific.
The workshop, joined by almost 30 individuals from different organizations, primarily aimed to provide a space for migrant women and advocates to discuss their most pressing issues such as low wages, discrimination, lack of protection mechanisms, lack of government accountability and many more. The workshop also gave an opportunity for participants to express their woes and demands using a creative form of resistance. Rengga, a genre of Japanese collaborative poetry, was employed as a way for participants to talk about their aspirations for a world that takes care of migrant women.
Developments in ILO C189 and C190
ILO C189 of 2011 is called the Domestic Workers Convention, a legal instrument aiming to uphold the comprehensive rights of domestic workers in terms of fair wages, defined working hours, rest periods, and protection from abuse and harassment. This Convention is connected with ILO C190 of 2019 or the Harassment and Violence Convention which aims to eradicate violence and harassment in the workplace, with a particular focus on gender-based violence.
Clarice Canonizado, the Education and Research Program Coordinator of APMM delved into the Conventions by highlighting challenges related to them – the most concerning one being the lack of regard for governments in the Asia Pacific to ratify them. The non-application of the two Conventions are reflective of the mediocre attention and accountability of governments in terms of ensuring the protection of their citizens, especially women, who bear the brunt of social, economic, and political inequalities.
While the ratification and adoption of ILO C189 and C190 remains in the backseat of government priorities, migrant women experience heightened challenges. Abuse and human rights violations are rampant in the form of physical and mental abuses on migrant domestic workers. Poor working conditions in employers’ homes and other workplaces are very pervasive. Many cases of domestic workers in Hong Kong, as shared by Clarice, are forced to live in cramped spaces such as bathrooms and cupboards where privacy is not ensured. In such scenarios, many women are very much exposed to sexual abuse by male employers. In addition, many women migrant domestic workers are subjected to forced contraception – a tactic pushed by employers to relentlessly maximize domestic labor of women from migrant-sending countries such as the Philippines and Indonesia.
Legal and policy barriers also make life difficult for migrant women. Cut-throat visa processes remain to be the norm and bureaucratic structures that slow down implementation of social protection mechanisms consequently hinder justice. In the same vein, lacking support of migrant-sending and receiving countries for migrant women is very evident in the context of lax policies that are not gender-sensitive and rather blind to the needs and demands of the latter.
Broadly speaking, Clarice emphasized that the persistent abuse and harassment faced by migrant women are rooted in the neoliberal structure of society which continues to pave the way for the flourishing of labor export programs. Women’s labor is maximized not just in their home countries but abroad as well where exploiting cheap labor has become the dominant force in maintaining the global market. Along with this, patriarchal and conservative values still proliferate. Domestic work is undervalued, relegating it as merely the obligation of women inside the home.
With the developments presented, it is very clear how the two conventions should be ratified urgently by governments and adopt them by crafting robust national policies and legal frameworks that respond to the challenges faced by migrant women everywhere in the region.
Migrant women voice out collective aspirations
Common to all participants who joined the workshop is their challenges in terms of accessing social protection and inclusion in labor laws and frameworks. Participants from Southeast Asia, particularly from the Philippines, Indonesia, and Cambodia have expressed deep concerns about being unable to utilize formal mechanisms which should be able to give them protection throughout their migration journey. Similarly, advocates hailing from the Pacific shared how a lot of women do not have access to essential resources and opportunities to gain meaningful socioeconomic mobility. Employment options, medical services, education, and even electricity are very difficult to obtain in Fiji and this further compounds the vulnerability of migrants who are forced to migrate to experience “greener pastures.”
Migrant women working in Hong Kong and Malaysia, and from Sri Lanka and Bangladesh are confronted with multiple cases of sexual abuse in the workplace, especially in the context of domestic work. Many are struck with intense trauma and in spite of this, seeking justice persists to be a protracted process fostering hopelessness to many migrant women and their families back home.
As a response to increasing and constant issues, migrants’ organizations carry on with building the movement through organizing and mounting campaigns. Many are involved with creating initiatives aiming to educate migrant women of their rights, while some have also attempted to lobby their governments to ratify and enforce ILO C189 and C190.
Through Rengga-making, migrant women and advocates expressed their demands as a form of creatively confronting obstacles posed by forced migration. Participants channeled their creative juices to formulate poetry containing their aspirations and calls for a better system. From topics around upholding freedoms and rights, to ensuring solidarity within the ranks of marginalized peoples and migrants, participants were able to share feelings and thoughts based on their assessment of the existing migration architecture.
Text in photo:
No, the government only wants our remittance
hehehe… They are hopeless
I try to trust but they are doing nothing
”Let’s fight collective for our right”
Our demand is providing livable wages
and safe working environment
Text in photo:
Equal pay for equal work
Decent work for migrant workers
Living wage, maternity protection & social protection
Freedom of movement
Freedom of expression, freedom of association
No discrimination for migrant workers
Equal access for services and employment
Meaningful self presentation of grassroot migrant workers
Meaningful changing of global and national policies
Responsive gender policy
Stop gender violence
Ratify C190, C190
Climate justice, end forced migration.
Text in photo:
I call you Sir, but you call me slave
I spent 24 hours to serve your families
I don’t get paid on time, I don’t get paid at all
I already [took a] bath with sweat, when all people are still sleeping
Even robot can’t endure my pain
Long working hours, no law protection
So this is my humble plea, my call for recognition
Respect domestic work as work
My domestic workers rights is a human right
My human right is same as yours!!
Decent work for domestic workers!
Text in photo:
[IN NEPALI]
It’s an only way out!
How is this our only way out?
[IN CHINESE]
I know I am not a citizen, but why am I treated as subhuman
[IN KOREAN]
Easily used and disposed
[IN TAGALOG]
In our country there are no jobs
In on our country wages are not enough
In our country it’s hard to live with dignity and peace if one’s stomach is empty
Create job[s] back home to end forced labor and migration
Text in photo:
So, respect us, care [for] all migrant regardless of our country or our status
And ensure decent work for all migrant domestic workers
’Cause home as a workplace should also be safe with equal treatment
So stop compounding oppressions unto migrant workers from workplace to social protection
Together with migrant women, we rise against violence’s reign, for justice, we stand firm, protection our unwavering claim
We dream of migrant women’s protection, justice and liberation
“What do we want? Protection for migrant women!”
With the coming together of migrant women and advocates, we see how it is now more urgent than ever for governments to ratify and adopt ILO C189 and C190. But while this is a valid cause, states must also go beyond these two Conventions and other migration-related instruments. The ultimate task for governments and the UN is to reform their labor migration policies and frameworks according to the long-standing asks and demands of migrants. This includes holding themselves and private agencies accountable for their culpability in forwarding and promoting labor export programs that force the marginalized, especially women, to leave their homes in the very first place.
Within the ranks of grassroot migrants, migrants’ organizations, feminists, and advocates, it is a must to continue forging solidarity through organizing, advocacy, and education. Despite and because of the challenges we face everyday, we must push through with the migrants’ struggle and never lose hope in attaining a world that ultimately prioritizes caring for migrant women.
