Immigration Laws: December, 1995 - Number #17

Indonesia plans to increase the number of Indonesians working abroad from the current 1.2 million to two million by year 2000, when they are expected to remit $12 billion annually. Indonesia would like its migrants to earn at least $500 per month, which implies that more skilled and professionals, and fewer maids, will be sent abroad. Indonesia has upgraded some of its vocational schools to train workers for foreign labor markets.

Indonesia plans to post more labor attaches overseas to protect its migrant workers.

Bangladesh officials worried in mid-October that increasing illegal emigration to Saudi Arabia, Malaysia and South Korea may encourage these nations to restrict the employment of Bangladeshis, and thus threaten the $1.5 billion Bangladesh earns annually in remittances-- Bangladesh earned $911 million in remittances during the first nine months of 1995. Some 156,000 Bangladeshi workers were deployed abroad in the first 10 months of 1995.

Saudi Arabia is Bangladesh's largest foreign labor market, accounting for nearly 720,000 of the 1.6 million Bangladeshis working abroad, and Saudi Arabia has said that over 40,000 illegal Bangladeshis in the country should be deported.

There are an estimated 70,000 illegal Bangladeshis in Malaysia, plus 161,000 with valid work permits, and South Korea recently ordered 5,500 illegal Bangladeshis to leave or face deportation.

Government officials blamed Bangladeshi labor agents for collecting fees and issuing forged documents to Bangladeshi workers eager for jobs abroad.

The Philippines would also like to upgrade the skills of the migrant workers that it sends abroad, both to increase remittances, and to prevent exploitation. There are about 25 million Filipinos employed in the Philippines, and two to four million employed abroad.

There has been a continuing public outcry over the conditions that Filipina maids sometimes experience abroad. In July 1995, the Philippines announced that women would not longer be allowed to emigrate legally to work as maids in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman and Qatar, and that maids already employed there would have to return within five years. The Philippines also announced a phase-out on the migration of entertainers to Cyprus, Greece and Japan.

The Philippines Overseas Employment Administration may have trouble enforcing these bans on sending maids to certain countries. The POEA admits, for example, that Filipino nurses enter Jordan as $200 per month maids, but then go to work as nurses.

The Philippines officially argues that exporting workers is a transitional policy that will stop as per capita incomes rise. However, most analysts note that the Philippines has been unable to create manufacturing jobs for ex-farmers--about 28 million Filipinos are considered to be poor, and two-thirds of them live in rural areas--and new labor force entrants. By some estimates, one in three Filipino households has or had a member employed abroad.

In the meantime, the culture of emigration that is taking root in the Philippines has led, some argue, to a rupturing the social fabric by breaking down traditions of kinship and community. The Philippine sense of self-worth is believed to be eroding, as Filipina women abroad are viewed as either maids or entertainers. Some studies show that relatively few returned Filipino workers are able to maintain the improved lifestyle that their remittances made possible, encouraging some to attempt to re-emigrate.

In some villages, five to 10 percent of the population is abroad, that practically everyone knows a migrant worker. A 1989 census of Pozorrubio, for example, found 3,500 overseas workers -- nearly all of them women--from a city of 49,000. Almost 60 per cent of the 258,984 Overseas Contract Workers OCWs sent abroad in 1994 were female. Some 153,000 Filipinos--of 300,000 on available to go-- are employed on ships around the world, often at salaries of about $300 per month. The Philippines is the largest supplier of seafarers to world shipping.

Many of the Filipino women going abroad to work as maids are college graduates, with degrees in everything from chemical engineering to nursing, who are escaping low wages and limited opportunities, and sometimes failing marriages. Stints abroad that were planned to last for one or two years have, in some cases, turned into ten-year jobs.

A study by the Geneva-based International Organization for Migration (IOM) of 170 Filipino domestic helpers in Hong Kong recommended that the Philippines do a better job of encouraging the countries in which its nationals work to enforce their labor laws. The Philippines both promotes labor exports and attempts to protect its workers overseas, goals that sometimes conflict with one another.

The report urged the government to form coalitions with other labor exporters to remind labor importers of the benefits of migrant workers, and to press collectively for better conditions, especially for maids.

The Philippines GDP is growing at a 5.5 percent rate, and this rate is expected to climb to six percent or more in 1996 and 1997. However, the Philippines has very low domestic savings, and high domestic and foreign debts.

The Philippines Department of Labor and Employment announced that it has about 250 inspectors to police the nation's 400,000 workplaces. Some 35,000 of 67,000 workplaces inspected in the first nine months were in violation of labor laws, usually minimum wage, 13th month pay, and social security payment obligations.

Vietnam's Department for Labor Management Abroad announced that it plans to send 100,000 workers abroad annually to relieve unemployment pressures. There are currently about 15,000 Vietnamese contract workers abroad, and 20,000 are expected to be deployed in 1995, mostly to in South Korea, Libya and the Persian Gulf.

China has at least 270,000 contract workers employed abroad, 60 percent in Asia, and some hope that overseas employment will be a safety valve as China privatizes state-owned enterprises that once guaranteed lifetime employment. According to Chinese officials, China will earn $7.5 billion from labor exports in 1995, up from $5 billion in 1994--China includes the total value of Chinese-supplied goods for e.g. construction projects abroad as well as wages in these estimates.

There are currently 50 to 100 million internal migrants looking for jobs within China, a number estimated to rise to 200 to 300 million by 2000. China recently began to promote the export of contract workers.

Sheila Tefft, " Toilers Who Know No Boundaries," Christian Science Monitor, November 29, 1995; Luz Rimban ,"Philippine worker exodus continues despite horror tales," Inter Press Service, November 10, 1995; "Vietnam aims to send 100,000 workers abroad annually," Japan Economic Newswire, November 4, 1995. Keith B. Richburg, "Filipino Servants' Futile Search for 'Modest Dreams', International Herald Tribune, November 4, 1995. Johanna Son, "Manila Must Look Out for its Migrant Workers, InterPress Service, November 7, 1995. "Bangladeshi workers face deportation," United Press International October 10, 1995