Child domestic work in the Philippines

There are hundreds of thousands of child domestic workers in the Philippines. The vast majority of domestics are girls, deprived of opportunities for education, isolated from their families and from opportunities to make friends, and under the total control of their employers. Child domestic labourers are invisible and marginalised both economically and socially. Often domestic work is regarded as a safe form of employment, but in reality a wide range of abuses, including physical or verbal abuse and sexual violence, routinely accompanies this type of work. Many child domestic labourers are subjected to slavery-like practices.

Visayan Forum has documented cases of physical abuse sometimes resulting in serious physical injuries or even death. In one case a child died six months after being forced to drink acid used for unclogging drains. One child was burned with an iron by her employer and another was made to kneel on a wooden stool for hours with fire extinguishers in both hands. Child domestics are also vulnerable to sexual abuse. In one district a government survey found that eighty per cent of reported victims of rape, attempted rape, and other acts of sexual abuse were child domestic labourers.
The majority of children working as domestics live in the homes of their employers, and many are not allowed even one day off a month. Contact with family members and friends can be severed at any time, and consequently they are hidden from government protection and services.

Child domestic labourers may have to use unfamiliar machinery; chemicals, acids, and other materials that are considered health hazards, often with very little protection and no training on how to handle dangerous substances. They are expected to perform skilled tasks such as childcare with minimum training and are severely punished for their mistakes. They can be on call 24 hours a day and may be awakened during the middle of the night to tend to the needs of their employers. They perform multiple tasks often under the supervision and discipline of different employers.

Cases of child domestic labour often involve elements of bonded labour. Recruiters charge fees against the future income of domestic labourers to cover expenses such as transport and accommodation. To encourage parents to allow their children to work, the recruiters also often pay cash advances to the parents. These children then find themselves in a situation of bonded labour where they are forced to endure exploitative work conditions because of the debts they have supposedly incurred.

Many child domestic workers are trafficked into these situations of abuse and exploitation. They are preyed on by recruiters who offer the chance of a better life to poor families often in outlying rural areas of the Philippines. These children are easy targets for trafficking because of the common belief among parents that child domestic labour is the safest work for children. They are generally placed in households in towns and cities far from home, with no one to turn to for help other than the trafficker.


Mila

Mila’s experience is typical of the many child domestics in the Philippines. She is now 23 years old, and started work as a child domestic at the age of nine. “During my time as a child domestic I worked for 11 employers. Only one of them gave me any salary, and that was just 500 pesos (US$9.00) a month,” Mila says.

Each day she had to get up at 5.00am, to carry out household chores such as taking care of her employers’ children, cooking, cleaning, doing the laundry and ironing. On top of this, her employers gave her additional work including helping out in a pre-school, making deliveries, and in one case, looking after pigs.

Conditions were bad, “in one place I lived in a shed, with no light, no mattress, and only one bucket of water a week for washing.” On two occasions she was sexually assaulted, once when she was 12 by her employer, a 70 year old man, and then when she was 15 by the brother of her then employer. After that, she ran away and found shelter with Visayan Forum.

Mila began volunteering for SUMAPI, the association of domestic workers set up by Visayan Forum, while she was in the shelter. In 2001, she was elected National President of the association and moved to Manila where she also continued her studies. In March this year, she graduated from university and is now one of SUMAPI’s three full-time employees.


Achievements

Cecilia has seen Visayan Forum grow from its formation in the years following the end of the Marcos dictatorship, to its current establishment as a national organisation, with over 70 staff in offices around the Philippines. They have protected and supported many child domestic workers and adult victims of trafficking, working to secure the rights of child domestic workers, and empowering domestic workers to help themselves.

Cecilia is proud of the creation of SUMAPI, the first domestic workers association in the Philippines, which is soon to become independent. Visayan Forum has established community centres in several areas of urban poverty, where the population is mostly made up of migrants from the provinces. These provide children’s activities, parenting classes, tutorials, promoting “child-friendly” districts.

The group has successfully pushed for various pieces of legislation such as the Child Labour Law, the Anti-Trafficking Law, and the Philippines’ ratification of the International Labour Organization’s Convention 182 on the worst forms of child labour. They have advocated for the Domestic Workers’ Bill, which although not yet law has a high level of awareness surrounding it. A recent national poll found that 49 percent of the Philippine population are aware of the Bill and 87 percent approve of it.

Halfway houses operate for victims of trafficking in several key ports, in partnership with the Philippines Port Authority (PPA). They have also created an Anti-Trafficking Taskforce with the PPA and a range of partners across society and have carried out awareness raising activities in source communities as part of their preventative work.

Cecilia’s work also extends beyond the Philippines, for example in her leadership roles with Child Workers in Asia, ensuring a higher profile for all child labour issues, especially child domestic work, in the region and internationally.

Challenges

Despite growing recognition of the importance of the domestic work sector and increased efforts towards alleviating the plight of child domestic labourers, Cecilia faces a number of challenges in seeking to highlight this issue and bring about real and lasting change both in the Philippines and further afield.

There needs to be a change in attitude towards domestic workers, both children and adults, and towards the sector as a whole. Many people consider domestic work to be a safe type of work for a child and do not consider the risks and dangers that accompany this kind of employment. Indeed some do not consider work in the household to be work at all, and are blind to the abuses and exploitative conditions of child domestic workers. Cecilia hopes that the Award can help her to raise awareness of the specific problems facing children working in the home and to challenge the attitudes that perpetuate their problems.

In the Philippines, legal minimum standards and decent working conditions need to be extended to the domestic work sector. The Domestic Workers’ Bill would provide protection measures specifically focused on the needs of both child and adult domestic workers. Cecilia and Visayan Forum are working hard to lobby for the speedy passage of this long-delayed piece of legislation.

Cecilia is urgently seeking to improve the provision of direct services to women and children trafficked into domestic work or who are victims of other forms of trafficking, such as sexual exploitation. Visayan Forum is looking to create a new safehouse for victims of trafficking to ensure their protection and provide them with a comprehensive set of services in an atmosphere that respects their rights. It would also provide relevant skills training and job placement facilities to prepare trafficking victims towards eventual reintegration into society. Cecilia hopes that the Award will help her to gain support for the planned safehouse.

Ma. Cecilia Flores-Oebanda