US seeking end to costly employment fees for OFWs




By MICHAELA DEL CALLAR
WASHINGTON - The United States is seeking cooperation with the Philippines to abolish exorbitant placement fees for Filipino workers applying for jobs overseas as many applicants end up in debt bondage and leave them at the mercy of human traffickers.
John Cotton Richmond, US State Department’s ambassador at large to monitor trafficking in persons, said his office was looking into a prevention strategy that would restructure the recruitment system.
Under the plan, an “employer pays” model could be adopted instead of passing all the fees to job-seekers.
“The reason that it’s important because for far too long, for decades, we’ve seen so many people going through tremendous amount of debt in order to find a job,” Richmond told Filipino journalists at a briefing.
“That debt can be manipulated by someone who is a trafficker and a forced laborer,” he said.
Although the debt itself is not illegal, Richmond said the aim was to take away the tools traffickers use to harm people.
“So if there’s a system in place that is making it easier for traffickers to operate and we can remove that system and we can flip the script on that,” Richmond said.
The Philippines is one of the world’s top labor-exporting nations with about 8.6 million skilled and unskilled workers scattered abroad, exposing them to abuses, unfair labor practices, and in some cases, civil strife in conflict-torn nations.
Remittances from Filipino migrant workers constitute a significant source of the country’s foreign exchange as they send home over $20 billion per year.
Philippine Ambassador Jose Manuel Romualdez said that the Philippines remained committed to engaging and cooperating with concerned US agencies in advancing the global anti-trafficking agenda.
"The Philippine embassy in Washington, D. C. sustains its cooperation and engagement with US stakeholders in order to communicate our priorities, including the importance with which we consider the role of labor-receiving countries in the fight against human trafficking," Romualdez said.
Since 2016, the Philippines has retained its Tier 1 status in the US government's list of countries that comply with international standards to combat human trafficking.
The Philippines narrowly escaped stiff sanctions that include the withholding of millions of dollars in American aid after the US removed the Philippines from a trafficking blacklist three years ago.
Although the government meets the minimum standards, challenges remain in combating the global scourge, Richmond said.
“Meeting those minimum standards is not the same as doing everything right,” Richmond said.  “Tier 1 countries have the right legal regime. The question is how to we implement that, how do we turn the words on paper into actions that help the victims.”
The Philippines, he said, should be vigilant against new tactics of illegal recruiters and traffickers to lure victims, such as the use of technology and social media.
“We are thinking about how do we continue to look for more victims,” Richmond said. “There is a constant evolution of our work that we have to always be trying to push forward and I’m encouraged that we are seeing these increasing efforts from the Philippines for the last several years.” —NB, GMA News

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

PCG: China’s bullying in West Philippine Sea undermines international law --- Ghio Ong - The Philippine Star

MANILA, Philippines — Letting China sustain its aggression in the West Philippine Sea would make other countries doubt the strength of international law currently being asserted by the Philippines, Commodore Jay Tarriela of the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) said. “Allowing China to blatantly disregard the established rules-based order threatens the very foundation that we all depend on,” he wrote in a post on X last Tuesday. He added, “If we permit this, countries worldwide may forget why this order was created in the first place. Nations could begin to doubt the significance of adhering to international law if powerful bullies can easily violate it.” Tarriela also said defiance of other countries to a rules-based order would result in the prevalence of cruelty. He wrote, “This could lead us back to a time when might makes right, undermining the global structures that keep human greed, savagery and barbarism in check. Such a scenario would not only invite challenges from aggressive ...
Read more

China ships maintain presence in key West Philippine Sea areas --- Michael Punongbayan - The Philippine Star

STAR / Michael Varcas MANILA, Philippines — While Chinese vessels in the West Philippine Sea (WPS) have decreased in number, they have maintained a presence in three key land features where naval and coast guard ships have intensified operations in the past seven days, according to the Philippine Navy. Latest monitoring by the Philippine Navy showed armed ships of the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) maintaining a menacing presence around the grounded BRP Sierra Madre in Ayungin Shoal, Panatag Shoal and Escoda Shoal. According to the Philippine Navy, there are 17 Chinese military vessels and 28 China Coast Guard (CCG) boats spotted inside the country’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) between Sept. 23 and 30, or one vessel more than in the previous week Sept.17-23. Five of the warships were seen roaming around the vicinity of Escoda Shoal, along with 10 CCG vessels and 12 maritime militia vessels (MMVs). There are also two PLAN ships in Ayungin Shoal as well as 10 CCG boats and 12...
Read more

Social media seen as cause of rising intermarriages --- Helen Flores - The Philippine Star

MANILA, Philippines — The Commission on Filipinos Overseas (CFO) sees social media as the main reason for the rising number of Filipinos marrying or becoming partners of foreign nationals. In 2022, the CFO recorded 6,854 marriages or partnerships with foreign nationals, a 40.1 percent increase from the 4,891 “intermarriages” recorded in 2021. “First of all, what we see in the increase in the marriage rate of Filipinos or Filipinos with foreign partners is because of social media, (that) is number one; matchings; letters, introduction of their friends,” CFO chairperson Romulo Arugay said at the Bagong Pilipinas Ngayon public briefing yesterday. Arugay said the agency has been registering a high number of intermarriages since 2007, but the figures went down during the COVID-19 pandemic. From over 6,500 Filipinos who married foreign nationals, only 600 are men, he said. Most of them are married to Americans, Japanese, Germans, Canadians and Australians, Arugay said. Arugay warned Fi...
Read more