Workers seek hope from Asean

Laborer Andres Bartolome had dreams of good pay in New Zealand. He saved his money, bought his ticket — and ended up lost in Malaysia instead, eating snakes and lizards to stay alive.

Now he says he cannot return to his hometown before he finds a way to repay the money he borrowed to give the people-smugglers who ripped him off.

"I can’t go back," the 33-year-old told AFP.

His tale is repeated many times over in Southeast Asian towns and villages, where men and women long for an overseas job as a vehicle to haul their families out of poverty but only wind up being cheated.

Leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) forged a landmark agreement at last weekend’s summit to protect the rights of Bartolome and the millions of migrant workers like him, who form the backbone of many economies across the region.

But while the accord’s intentions are good, it is far from certain it will make a difference in the lives of many.

The pact outlines a political commitment to protect the rights of the region’s burgeoning number of migrant workers. But it is not legally binding.

"I hope it’s not another toothless paper," Bartolome said from Kuala Lumpur.

Many men and women have been able to improve their situations as migrant workers, finding employment abroad and sending money back home in a cycle that has helped countless numbers of families escape the grind of poverty.

But many others such as Bartolome — not his real name — fall prey to illegal recruiters and syndicates involved in human smuggling, or end up with abusive employers.

"A legally binding framework within ASEAN that is comprehensive is still a long way off," said William Gois of Migrant Forum Asia, a non-governmental group that tries to help migrant laborers.

"In the meantime there are hundreds of people being deported every day from Malaysia and from Thailand," Gois said.

Bartolome, a handyman and cook, borrowed about $2,000 last year to pay a recruitment agency in Manila for a job in New Zealand.

He only got his ticket at the airport. And when he arrived there, the plane looked much smaller than one he had flown on to the Middle East several years before.

In fact he was booked on a budget airline — and one that did not fly to New Zealand at all. He was surprised when asked to pay for his in-flight food, and even more surprised when the plane landed in the Malaysian state of Sabah.

Left with no money, he and other recruits on board were forced to work at a remote palm oil plantation.

They were paid only 10 Malaysian ringgit ($2.85) daily to pick palm oil fruit. Food was meager and they were sometimes forced to snare snakes and monitor lizards to supplement their diet.

With the help of a friend, Bartolome escaped to the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur in December. He is still there, looking for a better job.

The Philippines is one of Southeast Asia’s main suppliers of migrant workers, along with Indonesia, Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar and Vietnam. Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei and Thailand are the major recipients of their labor.

The ASEAN accord spells out the obligations of both labor supplying and receiving countries, and calls for close monitoring for compliance by the ASEAN secretary general.

But without legally enforceable rules, it is unclear whether the agreement will be able to improve the conditions of the region’s vast traveling workforce.

"I don’t think it will make a difference," said Gois. "A lot of the palm oil plantation workers are lowly paid and undocumented."

Lilian, a maid working in Singapore who declined to let her full name be used, wakes at 5 a.m. for her job as a domestic. She says she cannot go to bed until 1 a.m. and remains on call the other four hours — every day.

"My body feels like giving up but my family needs the money," she told AFP.

Most of her monthly salary of 300 Singapore dollars (almost $200) goes to her husband and three young children in the Philippines.

She said she could not send anything home for the first six months, when she was paying off her debt to the recruitment agency.

Leah, another maid working in Singapore, was not so lucky.

She sought refuge at the Philippine embassy in November because of an abusive employer — and was back at home before she could even send her first paycheck.

"My woman employer would slap me in the ears when I made a mistake," said the 24-year-old, now back in her hometown in the central Philippines.

She wanted to lodge charges against her employer but that would have meant staying away from home even longer.

"I was shouted at almost daily. I can do the manual work but I cannot take the verbal abuse," Leah said. "I feel less than a human being."