The 27th Foreign Correspondent Report(Dis)Empowering Filipino Women Domestic Workers in Japan
Ms. Arisa JUNIO (Philippines)
The migration of labour has been economically beneficial to the Philippines and Japan.
Despite the colonial history of the countries, the Philippines and Japan are in an economic
bilateral agreement through the Japan-Philippine Economic Partnership Agreement(JPEPA) that mutually benefits both countries to cope with the changing demands ofglobalization in the international community.
The remittances being sent by Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) to their families serveas an important source of investment in the Philippines (Ordinario 2012: 1). Migration fuels
the Philippine economy through its Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs). The International
Organization for Migration (IOM) classified OFWs by occupational categories, and service
workers ranked first on the list of migrant workers. The service sector, primarily dominatedby domestic workers, is highly associated with women (IOM 2013).
Japan, on the other hand, lacks labour force due to its declining birth rate and ageing
population. To address these concerns, the Japanese government is restructuring its labour
market to be structurally dependent on legal and illegal foreign migrant workers (Ball et al
2002: 1016). In June 2014, the Cabinet suggested accepting foreign domestic workers, orhouse keepers, for support of Japanese working women in National Strategic Special Zones(Hayakawa 2015: 15). This has led to the amendment of the Act on National StrategicSpecial Zones to modify the immigration regulation in accepting domestic workers(Hayakawa 2015: 15). According to a published article against the bill, Susumu Murakoshi,
President of the Japan Federation of Bar Associations contended that the domestic workers
who will be hired are vulnerable women (Hayakawa 2015: 15).

Filipino Domestic Worker, photo taken by Akira Kodaka (2017) from<https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Companies/Filipino-housekeepers-Japan-dream>

The Philippine government is gearing up towards exporting labour to countries in need ofworkers to embrace neo-liberal ideals to economically benefit the country. In spite of its
intention to improve the lives of the Filipino people, the labour migration policy attempts tohide the visible layer of injustice to the migrant workers, especially to those women workers
engaged in services. Despite the existence of laws and bilateral agreements between thehost and sending countries, Filipino women migrant workers are vulnerable todiscrimination due to the mere fact that they are: a) Filipino, and b) women. These twoelements of being a migrant worker perpetuate the racialized and biased idea on women’s
work that devalues their worth.

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Filipino women migrant workers in Japan have a negative history in the entertainment
industry as Overseas Performing Artists (OPAs) in nightclubs. The OPAs experience various
forms of discrimination such as confiscation of passports and other documents, contract
violations—from OPAs to hostessing jobs—and low wages given after the contract, language
and cultural barriers, and the harassing nature of work. This stereotype has been reinforcedby most Japanese people towards Filipino women migrant workers.

"Pains and Gains" by the Development Action for Women Network (2003)<http://www.dawnphil.com/books.htm>

In addition to the historical employment of Filipino women migrant workers in Japan,
the familial setting of these women in the Philippines adds to the multiple layer of their
marginalization in both countries. Filipinos are known to have strong familial ties andacquire mutual support among family members through utang na loob (debt of gratitude).
This culture strictly holds to women family members working as migrant workers abroad,though it may apply to unmarried young women workers slightly differently from married
women domestic workers.
Unmarried Filipina migrant workers, in general, have their obligation to financially
support their immediate (and in some cases, extended) family members in the Philippines.
As a daughter who has debt of gratitude towards her family, she has to contribute to allkinds of expenses incurred by the family, and it is quite typical of unmarried Filipina
migrant women to provide financial support for sending one of her siblings (or extendedrelatives) to school.
Married domestic workers with children, on the other hand, are much more willing tosacrifice themselves and put up with the maltreatments they experience at work to enable
her family to lead a ‘decent life’. In a case where both the father and the mother are working
abroad, she repays the debt of gratitude to the extended family member who takes care ofher children by financially supporting them. In order to meet the demands of her own
children and extended family members, she has to work multiple jobs despite being paid
minimum amounts, whether documented or undocumented, just to send money and beconsidered as a daughter and mother who returns utang na loob.

The 27th Foreign Correspondent Report

In the context of the Philippines and Japan, Filipino women domestic workers areaffected by the state-inflicted marginalization that reinforces discrimination against thembecause they are women. The historical employment of Filipino women in Japan as OPAs
inculcated a derogatory perception towards them. Thus, engaging these women in domestic
work would only establish discriminatory value towards their work such as low-wage andunvalued work.

References:Ball, R. and Piper, N. (2002) ‘Globalisation and regulation of citizenship—Filipino migrant
workers in Japan’ in Political Geography 21 pp. 1013-1034
Hayakawa, C. (2015) ‘Japan’s Recent Development in Immigration Law and Policy: Reformon the Admission System of Highly Skilled Professionals, Technical Interns, andDomestic Workers’.
International Organization for Migration (IOM). (2013) ‘Country Migration Report: The
Philippines 2013’.
Ordinario, C. (2012) ‘Philippine economy can’t do without OFW remittances – Neda’ Rappler