State-Sanctioned Structural Violence: Women Migrant Domestic Workers in the Philippines and Sri Lanka

Abstract

Adopting a structural violence approach, this article examines how the failure to implement protective rights-based migration policies by the governments in the Philippines and Sri Lanka creates the conditions for the systematic exploitation of women migrant domestic workers by recruitment agencies and employers. Fieldwork conducted in 2018 with advocacy groups, government agencies, and international organizations in the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Hong Kong illustrates how both countries are prioritizing the promotion of overseas employment and commodification of labor above the protection of the rights of their women domestic workers under domestic and international law.

Gender and migration: Trends, gaps and urgent action

“…38 Total bans on migration to the Gulf countries were also imposed by Kenya in 2012 and on domestic workers by Ethiopia in 2013 (both overturned). Shivakoti et al, 2021;Weeraratne, 2023;Joseph et al, 2022;Henderson, 2022;Kavurmaci, 2022;Lynn-Ee Ho and Ting, 2022;Walton-Roberts et al, 2022. 39 Lim, 2016Hennebry et al, 2022.…”

Migratory dependency and the death penalty: Foreign nationals facing capital punishment in the Gulf

“…Extant literature has reviewed the exploitation of domestic workers, who make up the 'global care chain' (Hochschild, 2000). The literature has characterised the violence against domestic workers in various ways: some conceptualise it as a form of structural violence (Kodoth, 2016;Henderson, 2020), others see it as a form of 'unfree labour', 'legal servitude' or 'contract slavery' (Parreñas, 2015;Lan, 2007;Jureidini and Moukarbel, 2004), others still view it in relation to human trafficking (Jureidini, 2010;Fernandez, 2013), and alternatively, as a form of 'soft violence' related to paternalism and surveillance (Parreñas, Kantachote and Silvey, 2021). While domestic workers in other jurisdictions also have visas tied to specific employers, the kafala system is the most extreme form of this, with domestic workers excluded from labour laws and their associated rights (Parreñas, Kantachote and Silvey, 2021).…”

“…They explained that not only is blood money extremely costly for the government but there is also a belief that migrant workers need to take 'personal responsibility' for their crimes, notwithstanding states' responsibilities for exporting nationals to Gulf states who have a poor track record of treatment of migrant workers and failing to assist them when needed. As such, sending states could be accused of perpetrating 'structural violence' against their nationals, due to their 'failure to implement protective rights-based migration policies' (Henderson, 2020(Henderson, :1599Kodoth, 2016).…”

“We are Forgotten”: Forced Migration, Sexual and Gender-Based Violence, and Coronavirus Disease-2019

“…Adopting what Henderson (2020) describes as a structural violence approach, this article responds to the question of how did early pandemic conditions shape the lives of forced migrant survivors of SGBV? To answer this question, we introduce a new analytical framework bringing together three forms of violence: violent abandonment ( Schindel, 2019 ), slow violence of the everyday ( Mayblin et al, 2020 ), and violent uncertainty ( Grace et al, 2018 ).…”