Center for Migrant Advocacy – Philippines
15 - Unit #7, Casal Building, Anonas Road, Project 3, Quezon City, Philippines
Phone: (632) 990-5140; Fax: (632) 433-0684
E-mail: cma@cmaphils.org Web: http://www.centerformigrantadvocacy.com/
Replies to LOI for the Philippines with a focus on Women Migrant Workers 1
Center for Migrant Advocacy2
Item 12. State assessments of impact of free trade agreements on socioeconomic conditions
of women
State assessments of the impact of free trade agreements (FTA), including regional integration
into the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) are urgently needed, as AEC is supposed to
improve the legal protections of high-skilled workers moving within the ASEAN region.3
According to 2014 data from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA),
professionalized workers constitute roughly 11 percent of all migrant workers from the
Philippines. Hence, any assessment undertaken to study the impact of free trade agreements on
women’s rights must recognize that migrant women workers predominantly migrate through low
wage, and so-called “low skilled” occupations e.g. domestic work, which are not covered by
FTA labour mobility protections.
The Philippines will chair the ASEAN in 2017. It must be used as an opportunity by the
government to enjoin the ASEAN region in institutionalizing a more binding agreement on the
mobility of workers and the protection of their rights.
Item 13. Impact of the amended Migrant Workers’ Act and Household Service Workers
(HSW4) Reform Policy Package
1
This report supplements the CMA-led CSO Shadow report submitted in October 2015 for the Committee's
PSWG meeting held in November 2015.
http://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/treatybodyexternal/Download.aspx?symbolno=INT%2fCEDAW%2fNGO%2fPH
L%2f21904&Lang=en
2
Center for Migrant Advocacy or CMA is an independent non-government organization in the Philippines
that works for the promotion and protection of Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) and their families through policy
advocacy and facilitating assistance to distressed migrants. CMA is a member of Migrant Forum in Asia
(www.mfasia.org). In the Philippines, it is a member of Philippine Migrants Rights Watch (www.pmrw.org.ph),
Philippine Alliance of Human Rights Advocates and World March of Women-Pilipinas.
3
Demetrios G. Papademetriou et al. 2016. Achieving Skill Mobility in the ASEAN Economic Community.
Asian Development Bank and Migration Policy Institute. Retrieved from http://www.adb.org/publications/achievingskill-mobility-asean-economic-community
4
Household Service Worker (HSW) is the term used by the Philippine government to refer to migrant
domestic workers. Following the State party's ratification of ILO Convention 189 on Decemnt Work for Domestic
Workers, government said they would drop the HSW term and revert to “domestic worker”; in this report, HSW is
sometimes used interchangeably for migrant domestic workers