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Asia Pacific Mission for Migrants (APMM)
The Case of a Migrant Family
Luisa (not her real name) was born and raised among a peasant family in the southern part of the Philippines. Her family income comes from a parcel of agricultural land that her father inherited from his parents. Despite hardships, they were blessed with the fruits of their labour. But increasingly, Luisa’s family found it difficult to make ends meet. Her father complained of the rising costs of fertilisers, pesticides and other agricultural products. Aside from this, the implementation of trade liberalisation in the country caused more serious problems: imported agricultural products, cheaper than the local ones, flooded in. For example, the market price of locally produced garlic and onions was almost double that of the foreign imports. Luisa’s parents were forced to give up farming and her father went to the city to look for a new job. Luisa, for her part, ended up working as a foreign domestic worker in Hong Kong; her elder brother went to Saudi Arabia to work in construction and the family who used to live together suddenly changed to a family of migrants.
Asia is considered to be the centre of growth and development with the highest rate of economic growth in the world. But, in contrast, the majority of the world’s poor can also be found in this region. And those countries with the most dramatic growth rates like China and India are also home to millions of the world’s poorest. There are only small enclaves of prosperity amidst widespread poverty and uneven development and we see sharp contrasts between those few socio-economic groups that have benefited in some limited way from globalisation, and the vast majority that suffer from its adverse effects.
Under the auspices of “free market globalisation”, global powers such as USA aggravate the plunder, underdevelopment and poverty of poorer countries in the Asia-Pacific. The “free market” forced countries to dismantle mechanisms and abandon programmes for the protection of local economies as well as support for marginalised sectors of society.
The influx of cheap subsidised food and agricultural products from rich countries will result in more bankruptcy of peasant agriculture and fisheries. The view of APMM is that the national inheritance and traditional ways of working will be eradicated to give way to the unrestricted plunder of natural resources, and the flooding in of cheap industrial and agricultural products from monopoly corporations will result in bankruptcies of uncompetitive local production, causing more job losses and unemployment.
The UN Population Division estimates the migrant population in 2005 at between 185 and 192 million people – up from 175 million in 2000. Nearly half of them are female. This continuing flow of people seeking jobs outside of their homelands is principally a result of the unabated conditions of poverty, landlessness and unemployment in many underdeveloped nations, and the differences in living standards between countries. In fact, since 1980 these “push factors” of emigration have intensified.
The Internal Organisation for Migration and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development recommend “managing” this migration through generating rapid economic growth in the countries of origin and so inducing migrants to stay at home of their own free choice rather than migrate under economic compulsion.
However, governments of sending countries instead of attending to these developmental issues and causes of forced migration, are managing migration in a different way. Export of labour, of people, has become a cornerstone programme for national development, with remittances being sent back becoming a major factor that consistently cushions the decline of many national economies.
Asian Migration
Asia is currently the primary source of migration of all forms to most of the world’s immigrant-receiving countries. Almost one-third of all immigrants in Australia are from Asia, with China, the Philippines and India among the largest sending countries. Similarly, 33% of immigrants in Canada and 24% in the US are from Asia. However in real terms, migration flows have actually shifted in recent years and in some cases, international migration is actually decreasing in favour of internal migration. Although the numbers are increasing, Asians now represent a smaller proportion of the migrant stock and more Asians are finding job opportunities within Asia itself rather than moving to the Middle East, the original main destination for Asian migrants since the 1970s.
An increase in the number of undocumented workers is another striking aspect to Asian migration. Trafficking of persons is a huge and largely unreported problem. It is estimated the region accounts for one-third of the global trafficking flow.
Women Migrants
In 2001, women accounted for some 47% of all migrants in Asia. For many years, most female migrants have come from the Philippines, Indonesia and Sri Lanka where women make up between 60% and 80% of all migrants.
Women are still predominantly entering (or being entered into) the services and welfare sectors. Some skilled migration patterns have been observed but only if admission policies are specifically developed, for example recruitment of nurses and caregivers for the US and Canada.
They are preferred as domestic servants, entertainers, workers in sweatshops, hotel workers, shop attendants. The large numbers of women working as domestic servants and “entertainers” are the most vulnerable to abuse and human rights violations, including mental and physical maltreatment, rape and murder.
The demand for female migrants in the Middle East has increased, particularly in the service industries, through the creation of low and unskilled jobs that migrant women are willing to take while the local population is reluctant to do so. They are paid lower than the minimum wage and work longer hours. These jobs are filled by women from the developing countries of Asia, principally Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Bangladesh, Pakistan and India. The majority tend to work in private households as domestic workers, but also in the hotel and entertainment industries, the latter sometimes being a euphemism for commercial sex.
Hong Kong opened up its market to foreign domestic workers in the late 1970s. For the Hong Kong populace this meant encouraging more and more women to be part of the labour force – especially as foreign domestic helpers. But in 1987 New Conditions of Stay restricted the rights of such immigrants to negotiate their contracts or to stay more than two weeks in Hong Kong when their contract was terminated. This ensured a faster turnover of the easily available and vast pool of cheap women migrant labour, putting more pressure on them in favour of the employers. It often forces the migrant women to accept inhuman treatment and sub-standard living conditions, so that local employers and the national economy can directly benefit from their under-recognised and under-valued work.
Effects of Forced Migration
One of the most painful experiences of this forced migration and commodification of migrants is their separation from their loved ones and families. Their loneliness and cry to be with their families is never assuaged, even by the income they can get from working abroad. The long physical separation sometimes ends in broken homes. Their separate lives bring about different experiences and values that affect family relations.
For some, being separated from the motherland heightens their appreciation of their home, but for others exposure to consumerism and commercialism in the host countries has brought about changes to their life styles and different attitudes towards their compatriots of “lower” standing.
Children
For the children and youth who are left by their parent/s in the home country, the social impact is unprecedented. Many grow up with their guardians, not really knowing their parents, and their sense of belonging to a family is tarnished. The only sense of identification with their migrant parent/s is monetary – they are the ones who send them greeting cards on their birthdays and money for special occasions.
It is not surprising, therefore, that the separation from their parents often breeds low grades in school and social vices such as drug addiction.
Work undertaken by Asia – Pacific Mission for Migrants (APMM)
Experience has proved that welfare services are short-term solutions, and more can be achieved by uniting people in their endeavour to improve their situation.
So the main focus of the work is to empower migrant workers through knowledge about the causes of migrant labour and what they can do to protect themselves from abuse and exploitation. APMM also provides a social service programme for the specific counselling and welfare needs of migrant workers.
As a migrant centre in the region, APMM is committed to provide the necessary assistance for the migrant workers to establish self-help groups. These can lead to the formation of a movement both in their country of destination with strong links with the movement in their country of origin and towards the establishment of an international movement of immigrants.
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