Protecting the Rights of Women Migrant Domestic Workers

Structural Violence and Competing Interests in the Philippines and Sri Lanka

Sophie Henderson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781000539691
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Law
• Subtopic: Immigration Law
• Index: Law

Migrant women across Asia disproportionately work in precarious, insecure, and informal employment sectors that are subject to few regulations, pay low wages, and expose women to harm, of which domestic work is among the most prevalent. This book uses the cases of the Philippines and Sri Lanka to develop a comprehensive, intersectional, rights-based approach to better protect women migrant domestic workers against exploitation.

As accounts of exploitation, gender-based violence, torture, and death among migrant domestic workers increase, the recognition and defence of their human and labour rights is an urgent necessity. The Philippines and Sri Lanka are two of the leading labour-sending states of women domestic workers in Asia, and their economies have become increasingly dependent on the remittances they send back home. Drawing on extensive original research this book argues that these two sending states are guilty of structural violence by sustaining a network of institutions, policies and practices, which serve to systematically disadvantage and discriminate against women migrant domestic workers. The research covers the entire migration process, from pre-departure, through to overseas employment, followed by return and reintegration.

This book's innovative application of structural violence theory as a way to investigate the role of state institutions in labour-sending countries in the Global South will be of interest to researchers from across the fields of migration studies, gender studies, human rights law, and Asian Studies.

1 Structural violence and the role of the labour-sending state in international migration

DOI: 10.4324/9781003179085-2

The literature on the political economy of international labour migration contains a multitude of contesting theories that seek to explain the dynamics that initiate, perpetuate, and restrain the movement of migrant workers (Massey et al. 1993; Meyers 2000; De Haas 2010). Such theories focus overwhelmingly on economic forces and social networks as explanatory mechanisms of migration flows, generally dismissing the role of states and policies, particularly sending countries, in migration processes.

On the one hand, some migration scholars have focused on globalisation as the primary factor determining migration movements (Stalker 2000). The neoliberal globalisation thesis posits that economic globalisation has contributed to a ‘denationalisation’ of economies (Sassen 2004). In the Global South, this has been done primarily through neoliberal structural adjustment programmes imposed on troubled developing countries by international financial institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. Misra, Woodring and Merz (2006) note how neoliberal strategies argue that such programmes will lead to increased productivity, competitiveness, and economic growth: without state interference, markets theoretically work more efficiently. The shift from import substitution to export-oriented industrialisation was a major component of the structural adjustment programmes, as were requirements for deregulation of labour markets, trade/financial liberalisation, labour flexibilisation, and privatisation of industrial sectors.

These neoliberal policies are widely blamed for entrenching structural inequality and the ever-widening gap in income and employment opportunities between and within countries in the Global North and South. According to Castles (1998), the economic retrenchment imposed by structural adjustment forced governments to remove most safety nets for the poor, abandon programmes designed to protect the living conditions of their nationals, and undertake austerity measures amid mounting debt. This resulted in labour informalisation, dismantling of welfare systems, and cutbacks to health services, education, and childcare. Sassen (2000) details how the rise of care deficits and increased unemployment associated with austerity and adjustment programmes has been found to have adverse consequences for women in particular. As the state withdraws social support and thereby passes on the costs of education, health care, and other expenses, women have turned to foreign employment, especially care labour, as the most viable means by which they can secure quality food, care, and a solid education for household members otherwise depleted by debt servicing (Parreñas 2008).

The ‘push’ and ‘pull’ forces of temporary migration arise from this context. The ‘push’ forces operate in economically underdeveloped areas and involve a strong pressure to emigrate in light of the high levels of unemployment, low wages, lack of viable economic opportunities, poor quality of life, and political instability. In contrast, ‘pull’ factors operating in developed nations include higher wages and standards of living, as well as greater employment opportunities than can be found in the migrant worker’s home country (Misra 2007). Neoclassical migration theory at the macro level, as pioneered by Todaro (1969) and Harris and Todaro (1970), explains migration by geographical differences in the supply and demand for foreign labour. According to this model, the resulting gaps in income and opportunity cause workers to move from low-wage, labour surplus regions to high-wage, labour-scarce regions.

Structural adjustment programmes shaped, and continue to shape, governments’ strategies. One of the major features of neoliberal globalisation in the Philippines and Sri Lanka has been the export of labour, as governments faced mounting public debt and high unemployment levels largely as a result of structural adjustment policies. Some globalisation theorists tend to underplay or even ignore the agency of the state in this process. Solakoglu (2016), for example, suggests that the autonomy and sovereignty of the state are eroded by the existence of such international agencies that have created a new economic order, which must be obeyed by nation-states. Other theorists recognise the agency of states but treat them as contributors to their own demise. For instance, Oberoi (2010) observes the rise of the competition state, whereby a national and comprehensive government becomes less interventionist and more constrained by the rules of international economic regimes. One effect is a ‘race to the bottom’ between sending states in terms of eroding labour standards, working conditions, and wages, particularly for ‘low-skilled’ and low-wage women migrant domestic workers. San Jose (2015) suggests labour-sending states in Asia are in a structurally weak bargaining position to demand more rights for migrant workers as receiving countries can, and often do, approach other sending countries in the region who are prepared to accept lower wages and inferior working conditions for their migrant workers in order to gain a competitive edge.

Some theorists go further and see no future role for the nation-state in controlling its economy and governing international migration in the globalisation process. The hyper-globalisation thesis first coined by Held et al. (1999) posits that transnational social and economic forces, ranging from the internationalisation of capital to the rise of intergovernmental organisations, are constructing new forms of social organisation that will eventually supplant traditional nation-states as the primary economic and political units of world society. Held et al. (1999, 4) go on to claim that ‘since the national economy is increasingly a site of transnational and global flows, as opposed to the primary container of national socio-economic activity, the authority and legitimacy of the nation-state are challenged.’ Ultimately, hyper-globalists contend that national governments have become increasingly unable to control what transpires within their own borders or to fulfil the demands of their own citizens by themselves.

Bringing the state back in

Although hyper-globalists make an explicit claim about the demise of states in the global era, they fail to offer a policy prescription for maintaining global order in their supposed single global market (Myint 2011). More importantly for this book, Woodward (2005, 44) points out that the hyper-globalisation thesis ignores the extent to which the state has been ‘a critical agency responsible for unleashing and entrenching globalisation as part of a sustained political venture.’ Equally problematic, its mono-centric view of globalisation is defined solely within the domain of economic activities. Yet, markets and economic forces alone cannot account for the structure and functioning of the global economy (Gilpin 2001). Thus, while accepting that labour-sending states in the Global South are at a structural labour market disadvantage with economies dependent on labour export revenues, limiting their ability to negotiate with host states to enforce the rights of vulnerable workers abroad, hyper-globalists have gone too far by dismissing the role, relevance, and longstanding influence of the labour-sending state. I agree with Robinson (1996, 36) who argues that ‘we are not witnessing the death of the nation-state, but rather have seen their transformation into neoliberal states.’ The political project of neoliberalism seeks to create capitalist states that will implement policies to facilitate the total mobility of transnational capital (Lindio-McGovern 2012).

As a critical social institution, the sending state is undertaking restructuring to meet the needs of global capital not simply because it is withering away as a passive actor in the process of globalisation, but ‘because a particular historical constellation of social forces now exists that present an organic social base for this global restructuring of capitalism’ (Rodriguez 2010, xvii). Therefore, I argue that the Philippine and Sri Lankan states play an instrumentalist role in imposing capitalist market dependence on their respective labouring populations. In doing so, both countries have not only complied with the mandates of neoliberalism but also crafted a neoliberal strategy of labour brokerage, comprising ‘institutional and discursive practices through which they mobilise citizens and send them abroad to work for employers, while generating a “profit” from migrants’ remittances’ that become a source of foreign capital for the state (Rodriguez 2010, xvi). For Lindio-McGovern (2003, 518), the strategy of labour brokerage merely ‘perpetuates the conditions this policy claims to ameliorate and reinforces the IMF structural adjustment policies’ grip on Philippine and Sri Lankan underdevelopment since remittances mainly go to debt servicing rather than to generating new local employment projects.’ Accordingly, labour brokerage requires the responsibilisation of citizens who are to directly bear the costs of neoliberal restructuring and newly privatised services with the wages they earn abroad, as the state is absolved from having to provide social supports directly to its citizens (Rodriguez 2010).

However, in meeting the needs of global capital, the Philippines and Sri Lanka have taken different policy paths, largely influenced by the historical context of colonisation in both states (discussed further in Chapter 2). For the Philippines, neoliberal strategies of the state have long been shaped by the colonial legacy of the United States, which produced the structural conditions and institutional arrangements for large-scale emigration since the early twentieth century and laid the groundwork for the contemporary labour brokerage system (Rodriguez 2010). The phenomenon of Philippine-based labour recruiters and training programmes for overseas employment also find their beginnings in the colonial period. These institutional precursors would become instrumental in facilitating the Philippines’ strong market position, as well as the global dominance and desirability of well-educated and English-speaking Filipino migrant workers today. This, in turn, determines the extent to which the state is able to intervene with host country officials to influence labour conditions and demand more rights for its migrant workers.

Similarly, the modern political economy of Sri Lanka cannot be understood independently of the historical structures of uneven development erected through colonial occupation by the Portuguese, Dutch, and British, which set an influential precedent for capital accumulation by way of ethnic and gendered subordination (Withers 2019b). Sri Lanka’s anti-colonial identity post-independence occurred under articulations of nationalism and protectionism within a ‘closed economy’ model committed to import-substitution industrialisation. This shift accounts for Sri Lanka’s relatively late entry among Asian nations, including the Philippines, sending low-wage and temporary migrant labour to the Gulf. Severe restrictions were placed on temporary labour migration in Sri Lanka until the embrace of a liberalised economy and neoliberal reforms by the new pro-capital government in the late 1970s. Sri Lanka’s delayed involvement in international labour migration, coupled with less educated and thus less desirable women migrant workers, accounts for its fragile position in the international labour market, lower bargaining power with host states, and increasing motivation to introduce structural changes to train and ‘rebrand’ migrant workers in order to raise their ‘modest value’ (Ireland 2018, 334).

Though the Philippines has a distinct colonial history that accounts in large part for its development as a highly competitive labour brokerage state, Rodriguez (2010, 144) notes how it is ‘becoming more evident that the brokerage of labour is a portable and mobile strategy that different labour-sending states are adapting to their own ends within the changing context of globalisation.’ This is particularly evident in the case of Sri Lanka and its development of legislative frameworks and institutional structures to regulate, market, and facilitate the export of migrant labour.

Sending state influence: a tripartite typology

Building on this, I draw on realist political economy theory in arguing that sending states are involved in, as active managers and producers of, international migration flows. Realists consider the principal actors in the international arena to be states, which act in pursuit of their own national interests (Meyers 2000). Weiner (1995) is among the most prominent representatives of the realist political economy approach to international migration. His analysis starts from the consideration that global migration is largely influenced by the actions and policies of states in both sending and receiving countries. As a macroeconomic tool migration can relieve unemployment and the costs of the welfare state, while improving the balance of payments primarily through remittances. Thus, labour-sending countries have strong political and economic incentives to promote migration. Although Weiner (1992, 1995) does refer to the role of sending countries, his analysis primarily centres on the role of Western host nations and their perception of migrants as a potential threat to national security leading to conflict between labour-sending and receiving states. The influence and role of sending states in labour migration remain poorly specified and theorised, with research focusing on the migration policymaking of receiving states in the Global North and theories grounded in social and economic forces that leave little room for political interventions (Massey et al. 1993, 1998).

The argument of realist political economy that the state remains important and retains agency is central to my analysis. This book borrows from those core insights, but applies them to the issue of international migration with an emphasis on sending states in the Global South. In developing this argument, I use the tripartite typology proposed by Suzy K. Lee for theorising sending state interventions in labour migration and illustrating how they participate in setting up new frameworks through which globalisation is furthered. Lee (2017) argues that sending state intervention can be categorised into thre...