Novelita Palisoc’s story is one of empowerment.
Palisoc, who served as a maid in the Philippines for 19 years before working as a domestic helper in Qatar, is now the president of the United Domestic Workers of the Philippines.
Her journey mirrors the stories of thousands of other domestic workers here and abroad who have suffered a wide range of abuses in the hands of their employers.
“My employers in the Philippines never treated me well. No appreciation, no social benefits, no paid overtime, no limit to the types of work I had to do or the hours,” she said in a recent blog entry for the International Labor Organization.
“My next such job in the Gulf was even worse with all of the above, plus my boss took half my pay away. I had to survive on table scraps and suffered sexual abuse. I had no immediate way out as I could only get my exit visa upon the end of my contract. I endured the exploitation for two years, isolated in a foreign land without friends or being able to speak Arabic,” she added.
Palisoc shared her story during the presentation of the ILO’s Safe and Fair program earlier this month.
The five-year program, launched in 2018 in all 10 member-states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, is part of the Spotlight Initiative of the European Union and the United Nations aimed at eliminating violence against women and girls.
“The ultimate goal is to make migration a safe and fair process for women—and more importantly towards the creation of decent jobs and real opportunities that will uplift the lives and welfare of all migrant workers,” said Khalid Hassan, director of the ILO Country Office for the Philippines.
In the Philippines, the Safe and Fair program is guided by national project advisory committee that counts among its partners representatives from government, trade unions, employers, recruiters, grassroots and civil society groups.
“OFWs deserve to be empowered. We should provide care and protection when they need us the most,” Overseas Workers’ Welfare Administration head Hans Cacdac said.
UN Women acting officer in charge Maricel Aguilar said while the Philippines has ratified several UN and ILO conventions seeking to eliminate all forms of discrimination against women and to protect the rights of domestic workers, the crucial gap is on implementation and monitoring.
“The ‘Safe and Fair’ initiative creates an opportunity for us to look into these and to make them more responsive to women migrant workers. While there are vulnerabilities that are still present to this day, it is also important to highlight the capacities of women to actually shape public policies and programs. It is also important to eliminate stigma as it creates a lot of social breakdowns and barriers, putting a lot of migrant women workers at risk,” Aguilar said.
For Palisoc, who saw her union members grow from 200 to 2,000 in a span of three years, fighting for the rights of her fellow domestic workers has become her vocation.
“I want no other domestic worker to experience what I did,” she said. “And there is really strength in numbers.”
