Organized by the Visayan Forum Foundation and Anti-Slavery International With support from Oak Foundation Manila, Philippines, November 13-22, 2002

BACKGROUND

The phenomenon of child domestic work is an emerging trend in the international scene. There is an ever-growing concern and ensuing problems on this sector that constitute a huge effect on the issue of child labor. Everyday we are confronted with the harsh realities of children having no access to education, suffer discrimination, exposed to work hazards and experience poor living conditions, and ultimately are being robbed with their own childhood.

Interest in and concern about the situation of child domestic workers has risen exponentially, and was key focus of debate during the drafting of the ILO's Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention (C. 182) in 1999. However, heightened international and government awareness of the issue is not being matched by national level action, and for this reason organizations have been currently working to disseminate 'best practice' aimed at raising the profile of child domestic workers at national level, and building capacity of local NGOs in developing national-level advocacy action against the exploitation of child domestics.

In responding to the challenge, many countries still fail to recognize and include CDW in their policies. They consider child domestics as peripheral targets for many existing direct programs. These conditions limit our efforts. Nonetheless, it also presented us opportunities to obtain the much-needed support from different stakeholders. This situation transcends individual efforts of International organizations to unite and convene to form associations such as a Regional Task Force that would help build capacity of other organizations in dealing with the issue and ensure the accessibility of their programs to CDWs. Another area that needs to be addressed is the lack of creative approaches in dealing and improving employer-employee relationship. Many of our migrant working children suffers abuses and unfair practices by employers due to lack of government mandated working standards and undefined relationship between their employers.

Nowhere are these issues and emerging trends more relevant than in the Asian region, home to the majority of the world's population with child domestic workers. In March 1997, the Child Workers in Asia and Shoishab Bangladesh initiated the First Regional Exchange Program to discuss and exchange experiences and explore working approaches with children in the domestic service in different cultural or country context. The event was an encouragement for the stakeholders who joined. It deepens their understanding and inspired them to further campaign towards addressing child domestic workers' issues and concerns in their respective countries.

In November 1997, VF and ILO-IPEC organized the First Regional Consultation on Child Domestic Workers in Asia. And recently, we were given the honor to lead again as convenor to the 2nd Regional Consultation on Child Domestic Workers in Asia held in Manila last July 2002. Participating members of the task force quickly responded and proposed to organize a venue for an exchange of information and experiences among program implementers and professional individuals who are directly involved in child domestic work issue. They suggested that there is a need to enhance implementers' capabilities and gain more in-depth understanding about the emerging trends and issues confronting this sector.

OBJECTIVES

Generally, the whole event aims to further enhance the capacity through exchange of program strategies and strengthen camaraderie among program developers and practitioners who are directly involved in addressing needs and concerns of the child domestic workers in Asia. As a general process, they will also be exposed and learn from the experiences of Visayan Forum in its work with child domestic workers in the Philippines.

Specifically, the field exchange hopes to fulfill the following:

1. To foster the exchange of ideas and experiences among the Task Force Regional members on CDWs and tackle challenges and opportunities for improving strategies and program implementation for the child domestic sector.
2. To enhance the capacities of the participants to formulate, fine-tune and implement holistic interventions in their own country programs that would lead to national-level advocacy action against the exploitation of child domestics.

WHAT WILL HAPPEN?

The field exchange program is a 10-day event that would start from November 13 to 22, 2002. All participants are expected to arrive on or before the 13th of November. The site visit covers selected major project areas of Visayan Forum in Metro Manila and Batangas City. The areas for exposure trips include Luneta Park (where Visayan Forum conducts Sunday field outreach to organize CDWs), halfway houses, which is part of the anti-trafficking efforts at the Manila North Harbor, Kasambay Center (a center that provides direct services to child domestic workers in the Province) and Bantay-Bata sa Komunidad, which is a community-based center located in Pandacan, Manila.

The participants will have the chance to participate in a scheduled SSS mass registration of domestic workers in one of our project sites. There will also be a 2-day good practices workshop for enhancing and developing program designs targeting child domestic workers. At the last day of the whole event, the Visayan Forum will also launch its newest WEBSITE (www.visayanforum.org).

In the course of the scheduled activities, we shall be adopting the following methodologies: 1) Formal sharing of program/initiatives (per country); 2) Field exposure trips in park, schools, partner agencies, government offices and port outreach areas of Visayan Forum; and 3) Focused group discussions with SUMAPI leaders and Kasambahay staff.

WHO CAN PARTICIPATE?

The organizer is in the process of selecting twenty (20) practitioners and program developers mainly from among the members of the Regional Task Force on Child Domestic Workers in Asia. Inclusion of other organizations will be very selective.

FOLLOW-UP/SUSTAINABILITY

The field exchange program has a potential to sow the seeds for far-reaching changes and more responsive and holistic programs for CDWs in the coming years. The participants are expected to come up with action plans and shall continue to make collaborative efforts as members of the Task Force on CDWs. The field exchange program is also a venue discuss, fine-tune, and advance programs on child domestic workers that aims to contribute policy changes that address the visibility and economic marginalization of the sector. Furthermore, the event will be a venue to identify areas of collaboration and sustained partnership.

This field exchange would be comprehensively documented and would provide information on the Kasambahay program run by Visayan Forum and lessons for the running of similar programs elsewhere in the world.

ABOUT THE ORGANIZERS

Anti-Slavery International (ASI) is the world's oldest human rights organization and has undertaken research into the situation of child domestic workers in Bangladesh, Benin, Costa Rica, India, Indonesia, and Togo. It produced a handbook, Child Domestic Workers: A Handbook for Research and Action in 1997 to promote good research and follow up action on awareness raising and prevention. This handbook and its recommendations have been widely circulated and Anti-Slavery has worked with other NGOs from around the world to promote their implementation. Anti-Slavery has also advised the IPEC program of the ILO, UNICEF and Save the Children UK on the issue.

Oak Foundation, an international philanthropy, commits its resources to address issues of global social and environmental concern, particularly those that have a major impact on the lives of the disadvantaged. The Foundation focuses on the environment, International Human Rights, issues affecting women, especially domestic violence, the challenges faced by single mothers, trafficking of women, child abuse and prostitution, housing and homelessness, and learning disabilities especially dyslexia.

Visayan Forum Foundation (VF) ,Inc., the lead convenor of the Task Force on Child Domestic Workers in Asia, is a Philippine-based national NGO established in 1991 to work for a society where marginalized migrants, especially the invisible working children, are free and empowered. Asian in perspective and local in context, VF also seeks to mobilize national efforts by advocating for policies and programs that sustain long-term social changes involving children, communities and other social partners.

VF and CWA organized the First Regional consultation on Child Domestic Workers in Asia in November 1997 and continued the collaboration by organizing a Second Regional Consultation, which was recently concluded last July 2002. These events helped enrich the experiences of field workers and enhanced closer collaboration among them. Within five years, members gained positive results especially by setting up national programs and advocacy efforts in their respective countries. Global attention on the child domestic work issue has also grown.