Laws: January, 2003 - Number #12

The Communist Party holds congresses to select new leaders every five years, and the 16th Communist Party Congress was held in Beijing in November 2002. Party membership is at an all-time high of 66 million, five percent of the population. Party leader Jiang Zemin, who stepped down, asserted that the party can embrace the interests of entrepreneurs and other elites as it defends the working class, and will remain active in leading China.

Some 10 million Asians are expected to leave their countries for jobs abroad in 2003, up sharply from two to three million in 1993. About half are expected to travel abroad and work legally; the other half will violate exit laws in their country of origin, or entry and employment laws abroad. About half of Asia's labor migrants come from Indonesia, the Philippines and other southeast Asian countries. When they go abroad, half will remain in south and east Asian countries such as Malaysia, South Korea and Taiwan.

Women are a high percentage of the migrants from the major Southeast Asian labor exporters, such as the Philippines and Indonesia. Philippine government efforts to protect its workers overseas have led, as in Hong Kong, to employers turning to Indonesian workers.

Philippines. The National Statistics Office (NSO) reported that almost one million households in the Philippines had at least one overseas foreign worker (OFW) member.

The Filipino government regulates the employment of its citizens going overseas, but not effectively. A Filipina going to Taiwan to work as a maid for NT$15,840 ($450) a month is supposed to pay no more than one month's wages in fees to brokers under Taiwanese law, plus a monthly service fee of NT$1,500 to NT$1,800 ($42 to $51). In fact, many potential maids, after they have borrowed money to pay the fee, are told they must sign supplemental contracts that have more fees, often NT$70,000, and if they do not sign, their initial fee and contract may disappear. Then, after arriving in Taiwan, they are often required to sign another contract with yet another fee, so that total fees paid by the migrant may be NT$80,000 to NT$120,000.

A Filipino government official in Taiwan said: "It's a vicious cycle. If they don't sign those supplemental contracts, they fear they would lose the opportunity to work in Taiwan; and if they are already here, they sign whatever their brokers want them to sign because they are afraid they would be sent home. Their worst fear is to be dismissed."

Vietnam. Vietnam, a country of 80 million, has been sending more migrants abroad: 20,000 in 1999; 25,000 in 2000; and 35,000 in 2001; with 50,000 migrants expected to be deployed in 2002 by 159 labor broker companies. The government estimates that, if it can deploy 500,000 workers abroad by 2005, Vietnam will receive $2 billion in remittances, an average $4,000 for each worker.

Some of the Vietnamese sent to Malaysia complained that, instead of receiving the $250 to $300 a month they were promised, they received $100 a month, and that some labor brokers charge Vietnamese $5 each to be interviewed for an overseas job.

Tran Dinh Thanh Lam, "Vietnam: Migrating Laborers Run Into Exploitation," Inter Press Service, December 9, 2002.