More than a hundred women migrant workers from various organizations and union chapters attended the Seminar on Women, Migration and Human Rights held on 12 September 2010 at the Li Hall of the St John’s Cathedral. The well-attended seminar was co-sponsored by the Mission for Migrant Workers (MFMW) and Gabriela Hong Kong.

The MFMW conducted the seminar in order to educate Filipino migrant women on how their condition as migrants and women can be situated in the overall condition of Filipino women. It also aimed to promote the importance of organizing Filipino migrant women in order to enable their empowerment for the protection of their rights.

Seminar speakers composed of grassroots women leaders – Rowena dela Cruz of GABRIELA-HK and Dolores Balladares of the United Filipinos in Hong Kong (UNIFIL-MIGRANTE-HK) – first outlined the situation the situation of the Filipino women in the Philippine society focusing mainly on women from the sectors such as peasants and workers. From this situation, they explained the root causes of women’s oppression and explained that three layers of oppression – national, class and gender – as well as the authorities that define the condition of Filipino women.

They then related this condition to what Filipino women workers face in Hong Kong especially on the major issues and concerns they face including the exclusion from the Statutory Minimum Wage or SMW, the New Conditions of Stay (NCS) more known as the Two-Week Rule, the lack of protection and services of the Philippine government to women migrants, violence against women migrants, and the non-recognition of domestic work as work in Hong Kong.

After the inputs, participants actively shared their views on what were discussed and also asked questions to the speakers.

Some of the comments shared included the experience of one woman who felt empowered after taking an active part in her organization. She related how she used to be timid and afraid to voice out her ideas and opinions in her workplace and even in her family. Still another participant asked how lesbians could be situated in the whole picture of Filipino women.

Other participants pointed that it is very essential to know the rights of women and their contribution to their society and in the country where they are working.

Finally, a discussion was conducted on how organizations of women migrants should be further strengthened and expanded. The participants all agreed that such a seminar needed to be echoed to more of their members and to the larger community of Filipino women migrants in order to pave the way for women to realize the need to struggle for their rights and their freedom from all forms of exploitation and oppression.

As what one woman said, “We must be an active participant in paving the liberation of women from oppression that is very much linked to the emancipation of our people.”

With this thought, the participants left the seminar with renewed vigor to further develop the women migrant worker’s movement in Hong Kong towards meaningful societal changes for women, for migrant workers and for the Filipino people.#