IN order to be consistent with the international law and standards, OFW Party List filed House Bill Number 10579 to amend the provision of Republic Act No. 11862, also known as the ‘Expanded Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2022’, on the term use about underage workers.
OFW Party List Rep. Marissa ‘Del Mar’ Magsino points to the provision in said law identifying ‘child’ as a person below twenty-four (24) years old’.
RA 11862 amended RA 9208 and included ‘an act of trafficking in persons’ to recruit, transport, obtain, transfer, harbor, maintain, offer, hire, provide, receive or adopt a child for deployment abroad as migrant worker, without need of any accompanying unlawful acts such as with the use of force or threat, abduction or similar unlawful means to commit trafficking as enumerated in the law.
However, the amendment also included a proviso that ‘in the case of overseas domestic work, a ‘child’ means a person below twenty-four (24) years old’. This proviso has stirred a hornet’s nest.
Magsino said the restriction will necessarily result in the loss of overseas employment opportunity to Filipino domestic workers who are below 24 years of age as their recruitment and employment will be tantamount to human trafficking under the proviso.
“A child is universally well-defined in numerous conventions and even in domestic laws as person below eighteen (18) years old. Thus, the proviso in RA 11862 is restrictive and discriminatory to Filipino migrant women domestic workers or household service workers as it violates their right to work and travel, and is inconsistent with the ‘Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women’ (CEDAM), which forbids States to impose age-specific bans,” said Magsino.
Magsino said the proposed remedial legislation is also in accord with the recommendation of the United Nations Committee on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families on the Third Periodic Report of the Philippines in 2023.
