The Philippines is a major source of exploited domestic workers in the US

The story by Alex Tizon, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, entitlted "My Family's Slave," was the last story by the respected reporter and although it stained his reputation but -- as he intended -- it also aimed a spotlight on the issue of human trafficking. 

The story published in The Atlantic in 2017, was a domestic worker they called "Lola" (Tagalog for Grandmother) for decades, how she cooked for them, cleaned house, and raised the Tizon children without pay and suffered cruel physical punishment. 

"She lived with my family for 56 years. She raised me and my siblings, and cooked and cleaned from dawn to dark — always without pay," Tizon writes in the cover story in The Atlantic. "I was 11, a typical American kid, before I realized she was my family's slave."

The story published after the author's death went viral at the expense of Tizon's sterling reputation in the journalistic community. It also brought out into the open the dark secret more common than the Filipino American community would like to admit.

GRAPHIC BY SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST

Every year, hundreds of Filipino workers are trafficked to the US to work in servitude and debt bondage. The problem isn’t confined to the underworld. It plays out daily in the homes of wealthy expats, diplomats and wealthy people investing in US businesses as a means to safeguard their money.

“Human Trafficking at Home: Labor Trafficking of Domestic Workers” details the plight of nannies, house cleaners, and home health aides, and offers detailed solutions to plug the gaping holes that currently exist in legal protections for this mostly women of color workforce. 

The report, released at the end of July, showed most victims were female adults originally from other countries, including the Philippines – 100 workers – followed by Mexico (60), the US (33), India (21) and Colombia (20). There were also 11 from Indonesia.

The vulnerability of workers from the Philippines was laid bare last year, when the South China Morning Post reported on Filipino workers who were victims of labor trafficking in the US. Some had fallen prey to bogus jobs and many ended up trapped in the households of both Americans and expatriates, including diplomats and officers of international organisations.

In advertisements seeking workers on the internet and India-based newspapers, an Indian American couple from Stockton, California lured poor South Asians by making false claims regarding the wages and the duties of employment. Then, once the workers arrived at the the couple's Stockton residence, the couple forced them to work 18 hours a day with limited rest and nourishment. Few of them were paid any wages. 


During their trial earlier this year where they were found guilty, it was learned that the couple kept their domestic workers from leaving, and induced them to keep working for them, by threatening them, by creating an atmosphere of fear, control, and disempowerment, and at times by physically hitting or burning them. When a victim pushed back or said she wanted to leave, it got worse.

Nannies, house cleaners, home health aides, and other domestic workers frequently labor for extremely low pay, sometimes in conditions so abusive it amounts to exploitation and human trafficking, according to a report released July 24 by Polaris and the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA). 

“Domestic workers do the work that makes all work possible. Yet they work in a ‘wild west’ environment where working conditions are based on the good will of their employer rather than a set standard. This creates a breeding ground for exploitation, including labor trafficking,” said Ai-jen Poo, NDWA Executive Director. 

The federal Domestic Workers Bill of Rights, introduced in Congress by Sen. Kamala Harris, D-CA, and Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-WA, on July 15th, would take important steps toward providing these workers the rights they need, as would significant changes to regulations governing temporary employment visas for immigrant workers. 

“[Domestic workers] provide essential care and support to aging parents, people with disabilities, children, and homes,” Harris said in a statement announcing the bill. “However, our nation’s domestic workers have not been afforded the same rights and benefits as nearly every other worker, and it’s time we change that.”

GRAPHIC BY SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST

The highest number of labor trafficking cases reported to the National Human Trafficking Hotline, almost 23 percent, involved domestic workers. This is likely a small fraction of what is really happening as human trafficking in all its forms is notoriously underreported. Workers were often controlled through the withholding of earnings, misrepresentation of the job, excessive working hours, and emotional abuse. According to NDWA, 67 percent of surveyed domestic workers indicated their job expectations were only covered during informal conversations, with 74 percent saying they could not decline taking on more work.

FOR MORE INFO: Click here to read “Human Trafficking at Home: Labor Trafficking of Domestic Workers.” Additionally, Polaris has created a data fact sheet, a guide for families who hire domestic workers, and an overview of what makes certain situations instances of labor trafficking. 

“The importance of domestic workers to the functioning of our economy as a whole—let alone the functioning of our individual households—cannot be overstated,” said Lillian Agbeyegbe, Polaris’s learning and impact manager and the report’s author. “Yet, too often we learn about cases where someone has been held as a virtual slave in a home for years on end, and we are always shocked and surprised. We shouldn’t be. It is long past time to recognize that caring for our loved ones and our homes is real, vital work and that the people who do it deserve fair wages, decent working hours and the legal protections that can keep them from being trafficked.”

“The National Domestic Workers Bill of Rights, a 21st-century framework to bring dignity and respect to domestic workers, is part of a bigger solution to ensure that the trafficking of domestic workers ends once and for all.”

GRAPHIC BY SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST

Other findings of the report:

• 85% of domestic worker trafficking survivors report having pay withheld or being paid well below minimum wage

• 81% have lived in abusive living conditions

• 80% have been tricked with false or otherwise deceptive contracts

• 78% have had employers threaten to report them for deportation if they complain

• 77% report having their movements restricted or monitored by their employers

• 75% experience isolation from the outside world, with employers cutting off access to communication

• 74% report having experienced emotional or verbal abuse by their employer

• 73% report working excessive overtime, more than 48 hours per week

• 66% report having experienced physical or sexual abuse, either by their employer or a family member of their employer

• 62% report having their passports or other ID taken away from them by employers

• 45% report being in fear of physical harm if they were to try to leave their employment situation

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