ASEAN urged to protect OFWs

LABOR Secretary Rosalinda Dimapilis Baldoz urged the senior labor officials of the Association of Southeast Asian Nation (ASEAN) to extend needed protection to migrant workers, especially those who became undocumented not because of their fault, and thus become victims of exploitation, abuse, and violence.

In her message to the 11th Senior Labor Officials Meeting (SLOM) read by  ndersecretary
Reydeluz Conferido, Baldoz invoked in her call the ASEAN Declaration on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Migrant Workers “As stipulated in the ASEAN  Declaration, receiving states and the sending states shall, for humanitarian reasons,
closely cooperate to resolve the cases of migrant workers who, through no fault of
their own, have subsequently become undocumented,” Baldoz said.

She emphasized the upholding of the fundamental rights and dignity of migrant
workers and family members already residing with them, without undermining the receiving states’ laws.

Baldoz also emphasized the obligation of receiving states to “provide migrant
workers, who may be victims of discrimination, abuse, exploitation, or violence,
with adequate access to the legal and judicial systems of the receiving states.” She
observed that a purely legalistic response from respective ASEAN counties may not
offer effective solutions.