Labor trafficking is a widespread and growing problem for domestic workers. According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), 27 million people are in labor trafficking situations. Trafficking arises because of an extreme imbalance of power between the trafficker and trafficked worker, as is the case with employees of diplomats who are working abroad.
In 2011, Damayan launched “Baklas: Break Free from Labor Trafficking and Modern Day Slavery,” its flagship campaign against labor trafficking of Filipino migrant workers. Filipinos remain one of the most trafficked migrant workers around the globe due to poverty and lack of unemployment back home and the Philippine government’s systematic export of its people through the Labor Export Program.
“And so that was a whole campaign where media was involved. We got a lot of earned media out of that. We really started to shine light on this issue. And then again, the same thing coming in with that analysis about why Filipino workers are being put in these exploited situations to begin with, and bringing in that analysis around imperialism in the Philippines and of forced migration.”
“But the real breakthrough, this is like people started hearing about the issue, people started identifying with this issue, and more workers started coming forward. And we built this campaign because you could really see that this was an issue that was pressing in the community, and this was something where we could have a big impact and not just sort of grow our base, but there were workers out there who were in this dire situation, and we were learning a lot about how to support them, but also build power through campaign work. It was one of those things that was like through campaign work, you can really see people move from a space of having no power feeling they have no power to be powerful through the organizing.”