March 17, 2025
All across the globe, International Women’s Day is celebrated to highlight the struggles of women for better working conditions, better pay and full participation in society since at least the early 1900s.
Today, the exploitation and disenfranchisement of women have taken different forms. Global economic exploitation in the form of human trafficking is driven by widespread economic desperation of people from countries with a history of colonization. While recruitment agencies are the most visible perpetrators of human trafficking, governments in both receiving and sending countries are also accountable.
Since the 1970s, the Philippines has been a top source of workers in almost every country, mostly to fill jobs with difficult working conditions and low wages. The Philippine government has institutionalized the export of labour as a strategy for shoring up its economy. For Filipino women, this has meant jobs that are extensions of their historical role in society – caregiving, personal support work, and domestic work.
In Canada, the Philippines has been the biggest source of caregivers and domestic workers who play a vital role in the Canadian economy. Without them, countless workers in Canada will be hard pressed to balance the demands of their paid jobs and family responsibilities.
Despite their contributions to the countries where they work, migrant women face precarious work and precarious status. As temporary migrant workers, their immigration status is tied to their jobs/employers.Without citizenship rights, they face extreme forms of vulnerability - including lack of workers rights and protection, actual and threats of deportation, incarceration, and worse, execution.
Today, on March 17, we remember Flor, Mary Jane and Juana, and countless other migrants who did not get the protection and justice that they deserved. We remember that much work needs to be done to build a migrant justice movement, and to hold accountable all those who are responsible.
Thirty years ago, Flor Contemplacion, a domestic worker in Singapore was falsely convicted and executed by the Singapore government on alleged murder charges. Her execution on March 17, 1995 remains the symbol of the government neglect of Filipino overseas migrant workers. Her death shocked and angered many Filipinos inside and outside the country and provided an impetus to the founding of the Migrante International in 1996, which has grown into the biggest organization of overseas Filipinos all over the world.
Juana Tejada came to Canada as a caregiver in 2003 but after completing the requirements of the Live-in Caregiver Program, she was denied permanent residency and her access to health care was suspended. The required second medical exam revealed that she had a severe form of cancer and the government deemed her inadmissible to stay in Canada. Tejada’s fight for permanent residency inspired a grassroots campaign that involved other caregivers, migrants’ groups, women and the wider community. She was granted permanent residency and her campaign, supported by collective actions, led to the “Juana Tejada Law” that removed the second medical exam for caregivers applying for their permanent residency. Juana Tejada died on March 8, 2009, in Toronto, months after her permanent residency was approved.
Mary Jane Veloso is a Filipina migrant worker who was arrested in Indonesia in 2010 for alleged drug trafficking. Granted a temporary reprieve by the Indonesian government from execution by firing squad in 2015, she remained on death row for almost 10 years afterwards. On December 18, 2024, she was transferred by Indonesian authorities to the Philippines, but instead of giving Mary Jane Veloso her freedom, the Philippine government took her directly to the Correctional Institution for Women. More than ever, we need to continue the strong, sustained and loud international pressure on the Marcos Jr. government so that Mary Jane is granted full and absolute clemency.
Many Filipino women like Flor, Juana, and Mary Jane, will continue to risk their safety and lives abroad just to provide for their families back home. For as long as systemic corruption persists in the Philippines and the government has no genuine solutions to the burning issues of the Filipino people -- landlessness, joblessness, no livable wages, militarization, among others – thousands of women will continue to leave their families to work abroad.
Let us work for better wages, safe and improved working conditions, and for a Filipino society where we are not forced to leave just to survive!
Not another Flor, not another Juana, not another Mary Jane, not another year of the Labour Export Program!
For Reference:
Erie Maestro, Migrante Canada
www.migrante.ca | @migrantecanada (Twitter | Facebook |Instagram)
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