"For so long a time, we have been silent� neglected by society"

The Kasambahay Program is the national initiative of Visayan Forum Foundation that provides direct services and social protection; acts for the empowerment and promotion of self-help organizations; conducts advocacy for legislation and policies, programmes and related services; and offers a Resource Center that documents and consolidates material on child domestic workers.

• Kasambahay Journal (4MB PDF File)
• Description of the Program
• History and Development of the Program
• Program Accomplishments (1999-2000)

DESCRIPTION OF THE PROGRAM

The Kasambahay Program is the national initiative of Visayan Forum Foundation that provides direct services and social protection; acts for the empowerment and promotion of self-help organizations; conducts advocacy for legislation and policies, programmes and related services; and offers a Resource Center that documents and consolidates material on child domestic workers.

The involvement of other social partners from government, employers and workers groups are crucial. The programme has three major components:

1. Direct Services and Social Protection;
2. Empowerment and Promotion of Self-Help Organizations;
3. Advocacy for Employment Policy and Programmes.

The Direct Services and Social Protection component consists the continued provision of:

• Immediate response to child domestic workers at risk. This involves providing immediate assessment, and removal and interception during trafficking if needed, while making medical, legal, psychosocial, and police assistance readily available by tapping available resources from government agencies, NGOs, workers and employers groups within the National Program Against Child Labor. Send your concerns through our email hotline here.
• Psychosocial services in temporary shelters which provide, apart from a place of help and safety in crisis for abused CDWs referred and reached out, the opportunity to develop deeper relationships between care-givers and among other initially distrustful CDWs, the opportunity to make informed choices in the future, and the opportunities to learn life skills that may help them engage in income generation. Eventually, they are reintegrated to their families or other foster institutions whichever is appropriate. A half-way house in the Manila port is also initially part of the program to help intercepted, stranded or run-away working children who are victims of trafficking.
• Systematic coordination with school administrations and other partners to assist CDWs who combine work and study, as a strategy to prevent them from sliding into other worst forms of child labor. This involves strengthening of existing efforts with the schools tapped in the previous programme period in the areas of improving curriculum, providing immediate assistance to students in need, improving Kasambahay centers in schools, and organizing activities in tandem with SUMAPI and teachers. The Batangas center also offers alternative classes and trainings.

Empowerment and Promotion of Self Help Organizations involves:

• Flexible outreach services for child domestic workers in schools, churches, recreational parks, ports, and waiting areas identified as areas of high concentration of child domestic workers. The outreach uses creative methods in counseling and orientation about legal entitlements, social security system registration, and other informational especially of newly recruited CDWs especially during transit. In particular, the program assists domestic workers to avail of social security (SSS) benefits by conducting regular registration sessions in the field during their days off.
• The program works for the formalization and registration of SUMAPI as a workers' group. Strengthening of organized core groups and chapters as a workers group to enhance a meaningful participation of the CDWs in crucial aspects of the program in line with the over-all strategy and advocacy agenda for CDWs in the Philippines. This involves workshops to process their experiences and perceptions at work; to improve leadership and advocacy capacities, and; to deepening reflection in life during school retreats. Core groups leaders and advocates are identified and trained to become advocates in their immediate spheres of action such as schools, communities, LGUs, etc.

Advocacy for Legislation and Policies, Programmes and Related Services: the long-term goal is to enable and consolidate the protective framework of domestic workers embodied through the Batas Kasambahay, and the institutionalization of services for CDWs in government and civil society service agenda for action. This entails a continued:

• Strong advocacy and awareness-raising campaign that promotes the acceptance of fundamental principles on children's rights, decent work standards and employment contracts, gender-sensitive and child-centered strategies. The advocacy campaign is directed to child domestic workers, parents, employers, communities, religious groups, media advocates, national government institutions, local government leaders, policy-makers, the general public and other civil society groups.
• Setting up a Resource Center that consists of a mini-library, website, and annual newsletter that combined, serve as a venue to document and consolidate materials on CDW issue for easy access and use by researchers, students, academicians and other interest groups

The long-term sustainability of the program primarily depends on how a sense of ownership and responsibility is institutionalized among various target groups through the program different activities. It is also this program's continuing intention to enhance long-term relationships between and among various stakeholders (government and non-government) that ensure the long-term sustainability in the mainstream. The issue of CDWs should thus be integrated into the national development agenda.

The Visayan Forum envisages entering into long-term working arrangements for joint action on domestic work. The recent extension of partnership with the Philippine Ports Authority to five years of continued operation of the halfway house for stranded domestic workers is an example. It is also working closely with the national Social Security System (SSS) and the National Health Insurance System (PhilHealth) where the Visayan Forum has been asked to assist in social security registration and remittances of domestic workers.

The strength of institutionalization of the organization of domestic helpers, such as SUMAPI, ensures that self-help mechanisms and support groups of domestic helpers shall continue long into the future. The provision of work contracts, minimum work standards espoused through the Batas Kasambahay would guarantee the legal framework for ensuring minimum standards of work. Register your association with us and be recognized.

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ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF THE KASAMBAHAY PROGRAM (FY 1999-2000)

In the past two years of program implementation, Visayan Forum reached 5,216 child domestic workers in the field alone. Of these, 47 percent contacted in schools while studying (82 percent), while some waiting for their wards (18 percent). The parks yielded 44 percent; other agencies or institutions referred 8 percent; 1 percent walked in.

VF counseled 1,654 children either directly or one-on-one, by telephone, by letter, by peers, and by visits to their workplace.

Many ran away from abusive employers. Our center catered to 278 children needing a temporary place to stay in while awaiting referral to other agencies and, whenever the child and her family agreed, reintegration with her family.

Almost every week, VF assisted child domestic workers obtaining medication and hospital care, and referred them to clinics or other medical institutions for consultation or check-up. There VF 264 patients in all.

VF aided 133 children who sought legal advice and solutions. With our partners in government and civil society, these children tasted the power of the law to dispense justice against the abuses they experienced. Our assistance included facilitating claims on unpaid wages, going with them to hearings, making affidavits and/or counter-affidavits, arranging bail, facilitating out-of-court settlements, providing lawyers, and referring them to legal and paralegal institutions.

In six schools all over the archipelago, VF conducted field outreach activities because many child domestic workers were involved in their alternative education program. VF helped increase the survival rate by at least 20 percent.

As many as 2,410 child domestic workers became aware of their rights and entitlements, whom to contact in case of emergency, and how to survive the initial impact of abuses through unconventional training and orientation methods.

Some 116 child domestic worker leaders advanced to more serious trainings exploring leadership, team building, organizing, counseling, and self-development.

They championed the first-ever nationwide network of CDW organizations, which took off early in 1996. SUMAPI (Samahan at Ugnayan ng mga Manggagawang Pantahanan sa Pilipinas, roughly translated as Association and Linkage of Domestic Workers in the Philippines) means "to join." They overcame their scatteredness and invisibility to build SUMAPI into a vibrant organization of 5,000 members in 17 core groups.

Around 8,000 domestic workers regularly participate in park (4,000), port (1,000) and school (3,000 in 7 alternative schools) outreach activities nationwide through this organization.

As a parent organization, the Visayan Forum is proud of SUMAPI. Since its inception, SUMAPI has been a potent vehicle for raising public awareness and serving as a catchment mechanism for members in distress.

Some 15 members compose the experienced speakers' pool that has set foot in the most dusty rural town halls and the most elegant palaces worldwide. They have testified in front of policemen, legislators, presidents, kings and world leaders.

Although they VF told everyday that domestic work was all they could ever hope to do with any degree of competency, many SUMAPI members grew into humane, effective and persuasive activists for their own ranks. They watch over each other. Through their ever-growing network of cooperative employers, town mates, friends and relatives, they identify, trace and reach even severely isolated domestic workers.

They spot, report, and monitor child domestic workers suffering from abuse and other difficulties. They negotiate with employers of child domestic workers. Using a flipchart, they inform CDWs of their rights, and help the latter see and value their contribution to society. They facilitate child domestic workers' access to available services.

As a group, they help each other find hope in the face of despair, laughter amid pain, inner strength against coercive environments - in short, resiliency.

These gains are hard to sustain, but not impossible.

Towards sustainability, the program has successfully enrolled more than 500 domestic workers in the Social Security System (SSS) as of this writing.

A sustained media advocacy for the past three years has put the issue of domestic work into national consciousness. More people are now using kasambahay or household partner to ascribe a positive social image to these silent workers.

The staff has dialogued with more than 1,000 employers of the SUMAPI members to reinforce good practices. National television programs and print media outlets have started to help in this process of social retrospection, and by virtue of their reach alone, millions of employers have expanded their consciousness about the rights of domestic workers.

More than a hundred teachers in Kasambahay-organized classrooms have also volunteered to help in the efforts, being the second parents of these child domestic workers.

In aid of legislation, some 40 legislators are co-authors of a landmark Magna Carta dubbed as Batas Kasambahay. Various sectors from civil society groups, law enforcement, justice system, government, the academe, and people's organizations have also thrown their support behind the law and its enabling principles.

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