A FILIPINO human-rights lawyer urged the government on Wednesday to report the mass deportation of Filipinos from Sabah before the Geneva-based United Nations Human Rights Council to call the world’s body’s attention to the various cases of rights abuses especially against women and children by Malaysian authorities.

Clara Rita Padilla, head of EnGenderRights, said Malaysia will be subjected to a Universal Periodic Review in February 2009. A similar review was conducted early this year by the UN body on the cases of extrajudicial killings in the Philippines.

The UN rights body’s periodic review on Malaysia, she said, is “an important opportunity for us to hold the Malaysian government accountable for its compliance with the conventions it has ratified such as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.”

Padilla was part of the fact-finding team that went to Zamboanga last week to look into the state of Filipinos deportees along with Party-list Rep. Luz Ilagan of Gabriela Women’s Party and Connie Regalado of Migrante International.

The Philippine government estimates that there are more than 200,000 undocumented Filipino workers in Sabah, but the Malaysian Embassy in Manila believes the number has reached 300,000.

Around 200 Filipinos are being deported from Sabah every week following a Malaysian decision to crack down on undocumented workers in the contested territory.

“It is really unfortunate [to] have Filipinos suffer human-rights violations at the detention centers and yet they still want to go back to Sabah, to find work,” said Padilla in a statement sent to the Philippine media on Wednesday.

She stressed that the war has not really ravaged the economy of Mindanao, but made its people suffer deprivations associated with poverty like lack of access to education and jobs.

“Most of the deportees are unschooled or undereducated individuals from Tawi-Tawi, Sulu, and Basilan. Women from these areas who are experiencing the same harsh realities fall prey to trafficking in Sabah,” she said.

Padilla also said that the Philippines can also seen the intervention of the UN Rapporteur on Migrants and Trafficking in Persons.

“In the case of trafficking of women, both the Malaysian and the Philippine governments have failed in their obligation to exercise due diligence to prevent, investigate, and punish acts of violence against women,” she explained.

She recalled that the UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants, Gabriela Rodríguez Pizarro, recommended in 2002 that Philippine “consular and embassy officials…investigate and document incidents of abuses during the deportation proceedings and detention up to the moment of embarkation from Malaysia.”

But, she said, the Philippines ignored the UN rapporteur’s recommendation.

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‘Report Malaysia to UN HR Council’

A FILIPINO human-rights lawyer urged the government on Wednesday to report the mass deportation of Filipinos from Sabah before the Geneva-based United Nations Human Rights Council to call the world’s body’s attention to the various cases of rights abuses especially against women and children by Malaysian authorities.