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EDITORIAL
ABAKADA, SUMMER 2010
The Magazine of the Philippine Women’s Network in Denmark
Ang Balitang Kababaihan sa DanmarkABAKADA
EDITORINTL. COVERAGE
LAYOUT/GRAPHIC
CARTOONIST &ILLUSTRATOR
CONTRIBUTORSIN THIS ISSUE
PRICES
PRINTER
MAIN SPONSORfor this issue
BABAYLANADDRESS
CVR NR
BANK DETAILS
EMAILWEBSITE
SKYPE NAME
FILOMENITA HØGSHOLM
JUDY JOVER
MUIR JOVER
JEREMAIAH M. OPINIANOOFW Journalism ConsortiumANA LINDENHANNLAKAMBINI SITOYERIKA CREDO NIELSENDORIS ALFAFARARAUL J, PALABRICA(PHIL. DAILY INQUIRER)ALFREDO YUSON(FILIPINA)
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ABAKADA is the official news magazine of Babaylan-Denmark. It is trilingual quarterly published by Babaylan-Denmark, the Philippine Women’s Network that covers issues of women and gender as they tangent migration and asylum, development, cross-cultures, etc. Contribu-tions are welcome but are subject to editing for reasons of space and time. Reproduction in whole or parts allowedwith permission and proper accreditation.
5
I feel wonderful being able to say Welcome to yet another issue of our magazine after a long pause. As you may have noticed, we try to
be consistently relevant when it comes to women, migration and development, and the different ar-eas that are intrinsic to this important nexus. In this issue, we try to put our focus on remittances which of late has supplanted developmental aid in sheer volume: sometimes as much as 4 times.
This means that there is potential, huge potential in harnessing remittances for development. Our country the Philippines is one of the 5 biggest remitters on the world stage, and it is high time that we Pinoys abroad lead the pack in making sure that the money we send home to our families are used for something more sustainable than de-signer jeans, shoes and bags. Thankfully as Asians, we value strongly the worth of education and in this area, the Filipinos are at the forefront. Hous-ing, sturdy housing is another priority as evidenced by countless beautiful houses, often in prime property, spotted along the national highways from Luzon down to Mindanao. But more has to be done so we can finally feel that our efforts as hardworking migrants abroad can be vindicated.
In this volume, we document with a vengeance our many activities in photo reportages that say Babaylan was there, it shined and wowed audiences, it added perspective and content: in short, Babaylan DK made a difference.
Do enjoy the sights and sounds that this issue gives you the reader. If chal-lenged, you are welcome to share with us your thoughts and we will try to publish your letter next time around. Have a truly nice summer everyone.
Filomenita Mongaya Hoegsholm ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jeg synes det er vidunderligt at kunne byde alle Velkommen til nok et nummer af Abakada efter en lang pause. Som I måske lægger mærke til, prøver vi at være evige rele-
vante når det gælder kvinder, migration og udvikling inklusiv de forskellige områder i berøring indenfor dette vigtigt nexus.I dette nummer, prøver vi at fokusere på remittances, penge som indvandrere sender hjem til deres familier i hjemlandet. I den seneste tid har remittances længe overgået i beløb den traditionelle udviklingsbistand. Dette betyder at remittances udgør et kæmpe potential for udvikling i sydlandene. Filippinerne rangerer blandt de top 5 lande globalt set, derfor er det nødvendigt at vi udlandske Pinoys (filippinere i udlandet) viser vejen frem når det gælder om at sikre os at penge vi sender hjem bruges til noget mere bæredygtigt end designer jeans, tasker og sko. Takket være at vi er asiatere, har vi filippinere altid prioriteret uddannelsen, Også flotte huse, som kan ses langs landets kys-tområder fra Luzon til Miindanao. Men meget skal stadigvaek forbedres sådan at vi kan mærke at vores store anstrengelser i modtager- eller vært-slandene ikke er forgæves.
I dette nummer dokumenterer vi eftertrykkeligt via fotoreportager Babay-lan’s aktiviteter som siger: Babaylan var med, har gjort indtryk,publikum jublede, og Den har bidraget med perspektiv og indhold:Kort sagt: Babay-lan DK gjorde forskel!
Nyd nu al billed-og lydindtrykkene som dette nummer skæker dig Kære Læser! Hvis du føler udfordret er du naturligvis velkommen til at dele med os tanker og meninger som vi trykker næste gang! Nyd sommeren!
Filomenita Mongaya Hoegsholm
Filipina domestic helpers in Hongkong during their day off. Some streets have to be closed to accommodate them and serve as tambayan or hang-out places as parks & other public places are too crowded.
On 16 September 2009, WIDE Austria, in cooperation with the Trade Union for Metal, Textiles and Nutrition, Wom-en’s section (Bundesfrauenabsteilung der Gewerkschaft Metall-Textil-Nahrung, in short G-mtn frauen), arranged an evening around Women and Migration at the union’s com-fortable fifth-floor lecture hall. The occasion for the evening event was the presentation of the latest issue of the maga-zine Solidarity among Women (Frauensolidaritaet no. 109), with the theme of initiatives against the financial crisis and poverty. Filomenita Mongaya Hoegsholm, a representative of the WIDE Danish platform, KULU, also presented her book at the event. Filomenita is a journalist and an editor who has focused her work on migration, gender and ethnic equality and multiculturalism; she has recently published and compiled the book In de olde worlde: views of Filipino migrants in Europe. It is the first comprehensive book on migration from the Philippines to the continent, published with support from UNESCO among others (the publication can be downloaded from www.unesco.org).
Daughters of globalisation
According to Ms. Mongaya Hoegsholm, in her talk entitled ‘Daughters of globalisation: Filipino women bridging the development gap’, the main push factor for Filipinas leaving the country in such huge numbers is poverty and its flipside: the lack of jobs or at least underemployment. In the Philip-pines, as in most Asian countries, the main focus is the family, and the main family value is education. In
the case of the Philippines (which has a significant seg-ment of its population in poverty in the rural areas), families still prioritise education, and without discriminating against girl children. But while the females in society educate themselves well (more women than men in the Philippines have PhDs), there are not enough possibilities in the job market, if at all. Therefore, the move from countryside to urban areas, thence from the overcrowded cities to leaving for abroad – even when accepting jobs not commensurate to their education – is a more and more common phenom-enon, exemplified by au pairs in Europe.
Push and pull factors
Together with KULU and FOA (a labour union of unskilled workers), Filomenita Mongaya Hoegsholm founded a net-work of au pairs in Denmark with the aim of helping out the new arrivals from the Philippines. In her talk, she focused on the pull factors in this kind of feminised migration, namely the demographic deficit of an ageing Europe, where the elderly people need care, young women are busy with their careers, and young families need care for their young children and other household chores. It is for the latter that European countries open up for Filipina au pairs. Europe needs its cheap labour harnessed
under what should strictly be a cultural exchange scheme for young people but is nowadays used as a source for young and cheap labour.
The disadvantage to Filipina women in this situation is not only the unfair labour practice of unjust compensation but
ABAKADA, SUMMER 2010Continued on page 30
Women and Migration in Times of Crisis
WOMEN & MIGRATION
6
I heaved a sigh of relief when UNIFEM in New York, co-organizer of the Women and Migration Round-
table event in Geneva arranged that American Express issued my ticket from Athens where I had been Civil Society Days delegate to the GFMD, Global Forum on Migration and De-velopment... My late afternoon arrival in Geneva made it possible for me to have a short chat with Virginia about tomorrow’s Panel. Virginia Wangare Grainer, formerly of Kenya is Interim Chair of the European Network of Migrant Women, based in Germany and a member organization of the European Women’s Lobby. We both decided to have a little “statement” to open our interventions. And otherwise, we were told to be there 45 minutes before for the coaching regarding the Panel discussion.
Zina Moula, our coordinator from New York who is UNIFEM’s Chief for Europe and CIS division, took us in to the Geneva Headquarters but Vir-ginia and I nevertheless were denied entrance by UN Security personnel. Surprise surprise for everyone..No amount of explaining, nor phoning from the Secretariat could convince the officers to let the two migrant women from Germany and Denmark thru the magic UN gates, even when they were invited to address and input that morning’s Women and Migration panel in celebration of CEDAW+30.
The minutes quickly passed and Virginia and I really wondered if we will return to our respective countries with-out carrying our mission that morning. Finally, around 10 am when the meet-ing should have already started, an-other lady from the Secretariat came and entered our data herself on the UN Security computer computers, and then we could run to the relevant Hall where the Panel were already seated. Getting into the UN as a panelist is more difficult than entering the European Union as a migrant!
The Half Day Panel Discussion on “Women and Migration in Europe and the Commonwealth of independent states including in the context of the
financial crisis” was moder-ated by Ms. Jane Connors, who is Director, of the Special Procedures, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. The panel con-sisted, aside from us migrant women represnting WIDE and EWL, of Ms. Violet Awori, CEDAW member, Deputy Minister for Labour and Social Pro-tection Mr. Sergiu Sainciuc, Mol-dova, Ms. Violetta Neubauer, also a CEDAW member. The Swedish State Secretary from the Ministry of Justice failed to come. The idea was to set up a webcast as well as function as a teleconference with prepared audienc-es in 6 countries: Belgium, Kazakh-stan, Kyrgystan, Moldova, Tajikistan. So there was inter-activity.
All in all, inspite of the hiccups of being immensely delayed entering the UN premises- both Virginia and I felt pleased about the 3 hours that we were part of the UN to illumine on the issue of CEDAW and the inclu-sion of migrant women in the CEDAW agenda.
POSTSCRIPTThere now exists Recommendation nr. 26 on women migrant workers that initially highlights the CEDAW when it affirms during its 32nd session that migrant women, like all women should not be discriminated against in any sphere of their lives, and pursuant to Article 21, issues a general recom-mendation on some categories of migrant workers who maybe at risk of abuse and discrimination..
While the Migrant Workers’ conven-tion protects labour rights of migrant women, and their migration status as families, the CEDAW is necessary in supplementing when it comes to sex- and gender-based discrimination. All recommendations must then aim to elaborate on the “specific vulner-ability of women migrant workers of their experiences of sex-and gender-based discrimination as s cause and consequence of the violations of their human rights.”
It is strongly recommend for states to
respect, protect and fulfill the human rights of owmen migrant workers, along-side the legal obligations in other treaties but especially those migra-tion –focused bodies, for example, the Committees on the Pro-tection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and members of Their Families.
States must be ex-pected to guaran-tee safe migra-tion procedures by respecting women’s human rights through-out the migra-tion process and must recognize the contribu-tion of migrant women to their countries of destination and origins, in-cluding their domestic work. Addition-ally, all categories of women migrants , including the undocumented must be protected against all forms of discrimi-nation under CEDAW. Bilateral and regional cooperation is endorsed, in terms of best practice sharing and of information.
There are myriads of recommenda-tions but those concerning monitoring and reporting are very relevant, so are pressure or encouragement to states to RATIFY aforementioned CONVEN-TIONS .and human rights treaties.
Female migration must be under-stood from the perspective of gender inequality, traditional female roles, a gendered labour market, the universal prevalence of gender-based violence and the worldwide feminization of
ABAKADA, SUMMER 2010
24 Hours as “UN expert” in Geneva
continuation from page 30
WOMEN & MIGRATION
7
ABAKADA, SUMMER 2010 8
Continued on page 11
REMITTANCES
Globally remittances top $300 billion per year, outstripping foreign direct investment and
development assistance combined. But while transfer costs have declined sig-nificantly in Latin America and in Asia, sending money home to Africa is still expensive. Within Africa, costs can be as high as 25 per cent of the sum.For the region as a whole, remittances far exceed official development assistance, and for many countries they exceed foreign direct investment as well. With investment and aid flows heavily under pressure as a result of the financial cri-sis, remittances remain a resilient and vital lifeline for tens of millions of Afri-can families. Nevertheless, despite the significant direct impact of remittances on the lives of recipients, these flows are not yet reaching their full develop-ment potential.
Some 30 million African workers out-side their countries send home approxi-mately $40 billion a year in remittances according to a 2009 report from IFAD, the International Fund for Agricultural Development But with only as many “payout” locations on the continent as in one Latin American country (Mexico, which has only a tenth of Africa’s popu-lation), the process is expensive and dominated by two large money transfer companies which work primarily with banks.
There are large untapped opportunities for lower costs, particularly for rural Afri-cans since 30 to 40% of all remittances are sent there. People collect their cash first after traveling far. Governments must thus allow post offices and micro-finance institutions in this effort since remittances to rural areas in the African continent are significant. They also re-late to intraregional migration, particu-larly in West and Southern Africa. Here the mobility of Africans in these regions has resulted in remittances, eg. 2/3 of West African migrants in Ghana remit to rural areas in their countries of ori-gin.
Informality and Monopoly
Money transfers to Africa are most problematic owing to the two major challenges 1) high rates of informality
within the continent, and 2) a regulatory environment favour-ing monopolies. Thus, transfer costs are higher and remit-ters get less value for their money. Most African countries restrict outbound flows of money unless used for trading and money transfers to banking depos-itary institutions. As a result, informality emerges as the solution.
Another effect, is the persistence of mo-nopolies on transfers by banks and the few money transfer operators (MTOs). In all of Western Africa, for example, 70 %of official payments are handled by one MTO, which demands exclusivity in money transfers of the banks. Migrants in South Africa eg.face restrictions on sending money - barriers to entry relate to legal status, thus disenfranchising migrants.- and thus they rely on infor-mal networks.
As few institutions participate in the transfers, and banks do not cater to lower-income individuals, financial ac-cess among African senders and recipi-ents is relatively low. Other countries, for example Kenya, are seeking to in-crease financial access by leveraging remittance transfers through the use of mobile telephony.
Global solutions
At the G8 summit in July 2009, world leaders recognized the development impact of remittance flows and set a goal of reducing the cost of remittances by 50 % the next five years, if barriers are removed and competition encour-aged. It was IFAD who highlighted how new technologies, eg. cellphones and the existing infrastructure can increase the reach of remittance services. Alge-ria, where 95 % of remittances are paid through post offices, could be a model for other African countries.
“Supporting this people-to-people mon-ey flow to rural areas of Africa is espe-cially vital now because of the recession. The power of remittances can be catal-ysed by easing restrictions and making it less costly for African families to col
lect t h i s m o n -e y . ” n o t e d I F A D Assistant President, Kevin Cleaver..
Most money sent home by migrants is spent on daily consumption but re-search shows linking remittances to financial services for the unbanked - savings accounts, loans and insurance - allows even the very poor to save and potentially invest in development .
African remittances in numbers
Total number of emigrants: 32,808,000
Total remittances (US$ million): US$ 38,611 million
• Central Africa: US$2,690 million
• Eastern Africa: US$5,929 million
• Northern Africa: US$17,614 million
• Southern Africa US$1,979 million
• Western Africa US$10,399 million Indicators (weighted average)
• Remittances per capita: US$44
• Annual average remittances per migrant (unweighted average): US$1,177
REMITTANCES: AFRICASending money home is an expensive affairExcerpted by Filomenita Mongaya Høgsholm
9ABAKADA, SUMMER 2010
KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA—THE Kota Raya shopping mall here on Sundays reflects that Asian migrant workers understand each other if their heads of state allow the mar-ket as a platform for communication.
Here, words melding with nods and a thumbs-up sign are easily understood as agreement on a certain price for hand-woven silk or hand-sewn leather sandals.Two palms up and shoulders raised mean the seller –a Malaysian, Indonesian, or Filipino– can no longer lower the price of his product.
And the English is abrupt and staccato: “Two for a hun-dred,” “What price you want?,” and “Hey!”.
Foreign workers in t-shirts and jeans, sarong, and batik-print short sleeves, weave up and down the four-storey mall. For a day, at least, the 30-year-old building’s walls protect them from what some of them feel as discrimination from Malaysian employers.
Nepalese workers break out in laughter on one side; Filipi-nos do soon on the third floor. Chirpy Indonesian conversa-tion streams across the second floor while the ear picks up here and there a mix of several Asian languages.
Through purchases and friendly encounters with compatri-ots, Kota Raya is where Filipinos manage the stresses of daily labor at least once a week in Kuala Lumpur.
When we go back to their household and office workplaces, we have to contend with how lowly Malaysians look at us, a foreign worker explains on the freedom inside the mall.
Kota Raya is one tacit face of overseas migration in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Asean groups two labor-sending countries (the Philippines and Indonesia), four labor-receiving countries (Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand), and four other countries (Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Vietnam).
Especially on Sundays, the Malaysian-owned mall bustles with buying and selling and exchanges between and among
nationals of most of the 10 Asean-member countries and from other Asian countries like Nepal.
Kota Raya, located at Kuala Lumpur’s Jalan Silang and Jalan Cheng Lock junctions, is renowned as the beehive of foreign workers.
The mall’s 30- and 60-square meter shops glitter with products imported from the countries of these workers.
Indonesian movies in digital video disk formats are dis-played prominently as well as remittance signs of the IME Impex, which targets Nepalese workers.
The offices of American money transfer business Western Union, however, dominate the ground floor.________
ON the third floor is the Bayanihang Pinoy (Filipino unity), a 60-sqm shop selling products from the Philippines.
Garlic-flavored junk food, flavoring mixes for soups, vinegar and soy sauce, tissue paper, and packed noodles are ar-ranged in a row inside a wood-and-glass cabinet.
“This place is really like this –jampacked– on Sundays,” stall owner Pilar De la Cruz-Sangaran said a bit apologeti-cally.
Sangaran’s shop, which she continued even after the de-mise of her Malaysian husband, doubles as an office of a migrant savings group she started leading since 2002.
Her shop and their group called Samahang Impok Bayan (literally People’s Savings Group) are examples of how property rights factor in the formal mobility of foreign labor and capital.
For one, foreigners can only open a business if a Malaysian is the lead investor.
For another, Sangaran said they had to register their group with their official representative institution, in this case, the Philippine embassy.
“The Malaysian government cannot [and doesn’t] allow for-eigners to register cooperatives or savings groups. It is dif-ficult to institute such a savings scheme for us here, given how the host country looks at foreigners like Filipinos.”
Sangaran’s passionate vilification comes from her belief that foreign workers should keep money for themselves and avoid sending everything to their families in the home country.
“Doing so is also for our and our family’s future when we do decide to go home for good.”
Trading Places Buying, selling may be key to Asian migrants’ unityby JEREMAIAH M. OPINIANO
Continued on page 30
REMITTANCES
REMITTANCES
ABAKADA, SUMMER 2010 10
In partnership with Babaylan-Denmark, SEDPI was able to conduct Financial Literacy Training for OFWs in Denmark. The training was held at Copenhagen. The purpose of the training was to actively engage Overseas Filipinos to acquire and commit to the discipline of personal financial manage-ment to reduce their vulnerabilities.
During the training the participants were able to learn about the impor-tance of personal finance, setting financial goals, financial planning and budgeting, managing expenditures, investment planning and crafting a savings plan, breaking the cycle of dependency on remittance. and socially responsible investments.
Financial Literacy best strategy for today’s Global Financial Crisis!
Facts on Filipino Migrants:
