Of the 203 countries hosting more the 9.4 million Filipino workers, 41 nations were found not ‘compliant’ to the standards set by a new Philippine law that aims to protect its workers, particularly house help, in other countries.
The Philippines’s Republic Act 10022, or the amended RA 8042 or the Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos Act, provides that “there should not be any deployment to countries not certified as ‘compliant’ with the provisions of the law.”
Countries such as Libya, Egypt, Kuwait, Tunisia, Yemen and Syria have been facing uprisings since early this year. At least 3 million Filipino workers have been displaced and are currently trapped in these countries.
So far, 120 countries, mostly Western nations, were assessed to have been “compliant” to the new law protecting Filipino migrant workers.
A Filipino diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity said the new law certifies a host country of Filipino workers as “compliant” on three grounds: it should have domestic laws that provide for the protection of overseas workers in all sectors; it is signatory to bilateral, regional and multilateral agreements protecting the rights and welfare of Filipino migrant workers; and it has an existing bilateral labor agreement with the Philippines.
“However, if these noncompliant countries take positive measures to implement any of the three requirements under the law, the embassies and consulates may reconsider their assessment as compliant,” the diplomat said.
The diplomat said these measures include decisions of host countries to sign international conventions—such as the United Nations Convention on the Protection of Filipino Migrant Workers and their Families, and the accession to the International Labor Organization Convention 189, or the Decent Work for Domestic Workers and judicial declarations favoring migrant workers.
“These [measures] are keenly looked into by authorities in the Philippine embassies and consulates,” the diplomat said.
The Philippines is the world’s third-largest source of migrant workers, next to China and India, with 9.4 million migrant workers.
