Philippines

The Philippines has the interesting experience of having gone through two citizenship regimes. From an initial period in which jurisprudence favoured the principle of ius soli the country transitioned to the current regime in which ius sanguinis has been the prevailing principle. The initial period occurred during the first half of the twentieth century when the Philippines was under US colonial rule, while the subsequent period occurred after the Philippines gained independence.

This paper addresses a neglected area in studies of migrant labor in the Gulf States showing that exploitation of migrant workers occurs before deployment. Evidence from interviews conducted in the five major labour sending countries to Qatar (Philippines, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and India) suggests that the recruitment procedures and corrupt practices by recruitment agencies and employing company personnel in the receiving country place unskilled workers in a highly vulnerable position prior to departure from their home countries. As a consequence of practices such as deception, false promises, substitute contracts, bribery, and extortion, there is evidence of debt bondage, forced labor, and trafficking within the normative framework of labor migration. Reform measures that are currently underway in Qatar include the banning of workers paying recruitment fees and charges to agents.

This project studies the links between migrants' integration and their transnational engagement. Over the past couple of decades, rich empirical research in the field of transnational migration studies has highlighted that migrants engage in transnational mobility for an array of reasons, ranging from economic motives to emotional or political ties with their country of origin. They develop transnational business, trade, investments, or social and cultural programmes and circulate between their two countries. Research objectives: ITHACA aims to explore the interconnections between the integration process and transnational mobility of migrants by answering three key questions: • To what extent, and in what ways, do integration conditions in the country of destination encourage transnational mobility? • What are the conditions in the country of origin that encourage transnational mobility? • What type of transfers take place through the transnational mobility of migrants? To study these questions, ITHACA examines the links between integration and transnational mobility in regard to four countries of destination (Austria, Italy, Spain and the UK) and altogether five countries of origin (Bosnia and Herzegovina, India, Morocco, the Philippines and Ukraine). ICMPD is responsible for conducting the Austrian case study. The groups studied in Austria include Bosnians, Indians, Filipinos and Ukrainians.

Migration is often part of an economically beneficial livelihood strategy for transnational families. For many of the sending countries in Southeast Asia, a growing proportion of transnational migrants, particularly in Indonesia and the Philippines, are women. Many of these female migrants are married and an unknown number leave their children behind. To date, no official data exists on the number of children under 12 years of age with one or both parents absent due to migration but anecdotal evidence suggests that growing numbers of transnational migrants from the region leave children behind. Although most migrants send remittances to left-behind kin, visits home tend to be infrequent with migrants going away for two or more years at a time. With demand from wealthy countries for domestic workers, nurses and other carers increasing as their populations age, solving care problems in rich countries may be creating a considerable ‘crisis of care’ in less developed countries. However, little is known about the multi-dimensional impacts of migration on left-behind families, particularly children. It is not known whether left-behind children themselves are more vulnerable to poor physical and mental health outcomes, or in what way, when and under what circumstances do they benefit and/or suffer from the absence of parent(s), especially when the migrant is the child’s mother. CHAMPSEA Wave 1 is the first mixed-method study aimed at filling this significant gap in existing knowledge by examining both the reconfiguration of familial support systems after parental migration and the impact on child health/well-being in Southeast Asia. CHAMPSEA Wave 2 continues to investigate the long-term impacts of parental migration on the health and well-being of children who took part in CHAMPSEA Wave 1. The follow-up study surveyed and interviewed members of the same CHAMPSEA households in Indonesia (East and West Java) and the Philippines (Bulacan and Laguna) including children in middle childhood (then 3, 4 and 5 years and are now 11, 12 and 13) and young adults (then 9, 10 and 11 and are now 17, 18 and 19). Using the same mixed-methods research design utilised in CHAMPSEA Wave 1 that capitalizes on the complementary strengths of quantitative and qualitative methods, CHAMPSEA Wave 2 collects primary data using carefully designed survey instruments in order to create a unique longitudinal data set that will allow the investigation of multiple dimensions of children’s health and well-being. Through the longitudinal examination of transnational migration/householding, familial care politics and left-behind children, CHAMPSEA Wave 2 aims to: enhance knowledge on the health and well-being of children left behind in Southeast Asia when one/both parents migrate overseas for work; examine comparative impacts of paternal/maternal migration on child health over time; and contribute to academic, community, and policy debates in the region and beyond on larger questions relating to the feminisation of ‘care migration’ and the politics of care in sending communities, the organisation of reproductive labour within transnational households, and the migration-and-development nexus.

The dashboard of indicators for measuring policy and institutional coherence for migration and development (PICMD) is a user-friendly tool that has been developed by the KNOMAD Thematic Working Group on Policy and Institutional Coherence. The dashboard aims to measure the extent to which public policies and institutional arrangements are coherent with international best practices to minimise the risks and maximise the development gains of migration, and can be used by domestic policy makers and other stakeholders such as researchers, civil society and international organisations. For policy makers, the dashboard should serve as a particularly useful tool during the policy formulation, evaluation and adjustment process. Indicators are organised around the following five policy dimensions: promote institutional coherence, reduce the costs of migration, protect the rights of migrants and their family, promote reintegration, enhance the development impact of migration. There are two distinct dashboards – one from the perspective of countries of origin and the other from the perspective of countries of destination – with separate indicators except in the area of institutional coherence. Any given country can be considered both a country of origin and a country of destination. The Thematic Working Group is currently operationalising the dashboard in 15 pilot countries: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cabo Verde, Germany, Jamaica, Kenya, Moldova, Morocco, the Philippines, Portugal, the Netherlands, Serbia, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, and Trinidad and Tobago.

What opportunities do immigrants in Norway have for sending money to their countries of origin? To answer that question, this report examines the various services on offer in the Norwegian market. Focusing on transfers to twelve specific countries, the report compares the availability of different services, as well as their price and quality. The countries covered are Bosnia and Herzegovina, Chile, Iraq, Kenya, Lithuania, Morocco, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, Poland, Somalia and Vietnam. The services examined include regular bank transfers, money-transfer services, web-based transfers and so-called hawala services. In recent years, research on remittances has highlighted the importance of transfer mechanisms. The way in which money is sent determines how much of the original amount reaches the recipients, and affects how the money enters the local economy. For some immigrants, the lack of regular remittance services to their country of origin compels them to use services that may be illegal. The research presented here has various audiences. First, it is intended to inform government policy in the field of remittances. Second, the report may help remittance senders understand their options and make well-informed choices. Third, the analysis can assist private-sector businesses to develop better remittance services. The report has been funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad). The research it contains is linked with PRIO’s broader research activity in the fields of migrant remittances and transnationalism. The findings of this report are also presented at the website www.sendepenger.no.

This study attempts to shed light on the main characteristics of gender and migration from and to Jordan. As to immigration patterns, females account for an increasing proportion of foreign workers in Jordan. They come to cover labor shortages in low-skilled occupations where Jordanians do not wish to work, in the ‘personal and social services’ sector as well as in the Qualified Industrial Zones, where their importance is currently on the rise and where working conditions are unsatisfactory. The main sources of foreign female labor in Jordan are non-Arab Asian States, especially Indonesia, the Philippines and Sri Lanka. With respect to Jordanians abroad, in 2009 they were estimated at 350,000 individuals, of whom only 16.6% were females. Emigration from Jordan towards other Arab countries (i.e. the most important from a quantitative point of view) is supposed to take place under a temporary project, while emigrants directed towards North American countries, which represent, however, an important proportion of recent migrants, are more long-term oriented. In these latter countries, women, as well as men, tend to be highly-educated and are mainly employed in highly-skilled occupations. Moreover, an important part of this analysis is dedicated to the link between migration and education, which demands an analysis of foreign students in Jordan as well as of Jordanians studying abroad and raises important issues. Finally, the last section of the paper proposes some policy recommendations and in particular argues for new institutions dedicated to migration movements in order to give robust and reliable evidence on Jordanian migration patterns. / Cette étude se propose d’apporter un éclairage aux principales caractéristiques du lien existant entre genre et migration depuis et vers la Jordanie. Les femmes immigrées en Jordanie constituent une part croissante parmi les travailleurs étrangers dans le pays. Elles couvrent généralement des pénuries d’emplois peu qualifiés que les Jordaniens ne veulent eux-mêmes pas occupés, notamment dans le secteur ‘services sociaux et à la personne’ et dans les Zones Qualifiés Industriels, au sein desquels leur nombre croît aujourd’hui, et leurs conditions de travail restent insatisfaisantes. Les principaux flux de femmes travailleuses immigrées sont en provenance de pays non-arabes et asiatiques, en particulier de l’Indonésie, des Philippines et du Sri Lanka. La part des Jordaniens résidant à l’étranger est estimée, au titre de l’année 2009, à hauteur de 350 000 individus, incluant une proportion de 16,6% de femmes. Les principaux flux d’émigration à destination d’autres Etats arabes s’inscrivent, en principe, dans une stratégie à court terme, alors que les émigrants à destination de l’Amérique du Nord - lesquels représentent une importante proportion parmi l’émigration récente -, s’inscrivent dans un projet migratoire à plus long terme. S’agissant de ces dernières destinations et à l’instar des hommes, les femmes sont davantage issues de l’enseignement supérieur, et sont principalement employées dans des postes hautement qualifiés. En outre, un important segment de cette analyse sera consacré à l’analyse du lien existant entre migration et éducation - lequel part d’une enquête menée sur un échantillon d’étudiants étrangers résidents en Jordanie, et d’étudiants jordaniens résidant à l’étranger -, dont il conviendra de tirer un certain nombre de conclusions. Enfin, la dernière section de cette note énonce une série de recommandations et préconise, en particulier, le développement de nouvelles institutions consacrées à l’analyse des mouvements migratoires en vue de dresser un tableau plus compréhensif des caractéristiques de la migration jordanienne.

The phenomena surrounding temporary transnational mobility of people are giving rise to an increasing political and academic debate throughout the world. This multidisciplinary EURA-NET project produces scientifically sound and innovative framings for investigating transformative characteristics and development impacts of temporary transnational migration and mobility in highly industrialised societies, transformation countries (emerging economies, transition countries, e.g.) and developing countries. Theoretical and empirical studies will be accomplished to attain an understanding of the transformative characteristics of temporary and circular migration, e.g. the mobility of seasonal workers, students, tourists and corporate workers in China, Finland, Germany, Hungary, India, the Netherlands, the Philippines, Thailand, Turkey and Ukraine, as well as in wider international and regional contexts. Research data will be gathered through interviews with individual migrants (and non-migrants) and national and international policy-makers. The findings in the European-Asian context will provide insights to be applied to other world regions. The final aim is to promote migration governance in a development perspective at all levels, from national to international. An associated set of questions concerns what challenges temporary transnational mobility poses to policy-making on European, national, international and global scales. By uncovering how politics structure people’s border-crossing movements in migrant-sending, migrant-receiving and transit countries and by shedding light on the international practices and lived experiences of individual migrants, the project will help European policy-makers to address challenges arising in the increasingly interconnected and demographically mobile world. The research outcomes will be communicated in the forms of policy briefs and scientific and policy reports to multi-level interest groups in European governance.