O corpo feminino enquanto commodity de exportação filipina: o caso das empregadas domésticas

Abstract

Household Service Workers migration from the Philippines is a phenomenon on the rise since the 1970s, making its way into being the majority of the migration numbers from the country. Since the dictatorial Marcos government on the country, the State's role in regulating and encouraging work migration has become increasingly institutionalized, which meant advances both in protection for it's nationals working overseas and in the search for new markets abroad with demand for migrant workforce. Within this broader process this paper aims to understand the role of the Philippine State at regulating/encouraging migration of Household Service Workers. The working hypothesis consists in the contradiction between parternalist state ideals and market-related neoliberal economic goals as being the duo that leads the state's action in this matter, which brings the female body as the main object of the legislations. In that matter, the main methodology chosen is a case study coupled with literary review and documental analysis to assert the veracity of the vented hypothesis. Those tolls allowed the perception of a meaningful bureaucratic and legislative production from key government institutions of the country which aimed at protecting this specific category of migrant workers, nonetheless, the effectiveness and real compromise of this production is questionable. A second conclusion drawn from this are the priorities the Philippine State allocates when dealing with gender-related violence. For example, there is a significant number of bureaucratic/legal pieces concerned with violence against household service workers working abroad, yet, when dealing with another vulnerable category of women migrant workers, entertainers, this production is mainly devoid of attention.