Human Rights Begins at Home (tags)
On December 10th, 2008, DAMAYAN Migrant Workers Association celebrates the 60th anniversary of United Declaration of Human Rights with the domestic workers, women, im/migrants, people of color and all oppressed people whose human rights are under attack and are struggling for justice, dignity and liberation. Filipino im/migrant women workers continue to face the brunt on the deepening global economic crisis and are subjected to rampant human rights violations perpetrated by bad employers, diplomats, governments. We demand that individuals and institutions be accountable for upholding the basic rights of all people as recognized in the United Declaration of Human Rights and the need to develop additional protection for domestic workers. Like Marichu Baoanan, a Filipina nursing school graduate and caregiver who filed 15 counts of trafficking, forced labor and racketeering against former Philippine Ambassador to the United Nations Lauro Baja, women workers from around the world have first-hand experience of abuse, dehumanization and enslavement. Marichu was forced to make the painful and risky decision of migrating abroad in the interest of her family's survival. While she expected to earn a living in a forieign land, away from her family and familiarity of her homeland, she did not anticipate the slave wage equivalent to 6 cents per hour, 18-hour working conditions and being subjected to routine insults, curses and humiliation.