Fewer women left for jobs abroad in 2007 - POEA

MANILA, Philippines - While Filipino migration has taken the face of a woman over the years, the Philippine Overseas Employment Agency (POEA) revealed on Friday that there has been a considerable drop in the number of Filipino women deployed last year.

Data from the POEA show that only 47 percent (or 124, 704) of the 267, 453 new hires in 2007 were women. This number is 60,000 short of the previous year's volume of 184,454 Filipina new hires.

Despite the decline in the number of Filipino women new hires, the number of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) still climbed to 1,012,954 from January to December 2007.

The POEA data was relayed at the “Kapihan at Pulong-Pulong ng mga Kababaihang OFW,"a round-table discussion broadcast live on government-run NBN- Channel 4 on Friday.

Labor Secretary Arturo Brion and television personality Miriam Quiambao hosted the show which paid tribute to successful OFW women entrepreneurs.

This was also held as part of the national observation of Women’s Day on Saturday, March 8.

Brion said that remittances coming from OFW women have helped in pushing for the country’s 7.3 percent record-high economic growth.

He also noted that a significant number of the OFW remittances came from the women since they constituted almost half of the newly hired OFWs deployed by the POEA last year.

Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) data showed that OFW remittances reached $14.4 billion in 2007, up from the previous year's $12.8 billion.

While the economic benefits of women OFWs are being lauded by the government, several non-government organizations (NGOs) and militant groups have denounced the continuing deployment of a significant number of women workers who are often abused abroad.

“Migrant women, because of the nature of their work and lowered status, usually end up victims to the more serious problems of migration: physical and sexual abuse, drug dependence, prostitution, mysterious or violent deaths, and trafficking in women. Other migrant women end up on the missing persons list," said the Center for Migrants Advocacy in a working paper in 2006.

The CMA further said that women are exposed to the “3D jobs" (dirty, dangerous and demeaning), such as domestic work.

Dr Lourdes Arellano-Carandang, a renowned child psychologist who launched a book titled, “Nawala ang Ilaw ng Tahanan," said that the remittances of OFW women do not equate to the social costs they have on the Filipino family.

“They remit more money because they are more faithful in remitting than the men but that’s on the side of the money only. The emotional and social costs are not talked about but the money, but we have to consider the entire [OFW] phenomenon holistically," Carandang explained. - Mark Joseph Ubalde, GMANews.TV

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