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Pinays work abroad so children can pursue formal education

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2006/08/16 - 4:48pm
Filipino women choose to work abroad so they can support their children's schooling according to the militant labor center Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) as recent studies by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) showed that the net enrollment ratio of RP children has deteriorated over the past two decades. The enrollment ratio dropped from a97-percent ratio in the 1990 to 93 percent in 2000 and it has not achieved significant increase ever since.

"Women carry the brunt of the high unemployment rate, low wages and increases in the prices of the basic commodities and have chosen to tread the path taken by 3,600 Filipinos who leaves the country each day in search for greener and yet more likely dangerous pastures abroad so that their children may pursue formal education," said KMU Womens' Department Secretary Nitz Gonzaga.

The veteran woman labor leader said that due to relentless poverty, many Filipinos still rely on education to improve their living condition, "But government spending on education and other social services were always scanty compared to debt-servicing and military spending."

According to the Center for Women's Resources (CWR), taking its data from the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB), that 70% of 284,285 new hires of OFWs are women. Many of these Filipinas are domestic helpers (30%), entertainers (14%) and factory workers (14%). Most of these are employed in the Middle East and Africa and 55% of these are women.

Gonzaga also expressed condolence to the family of Shirley Balajadia of Tarlac, an OFW who died yesterday at the Ospital ng Makati less than a week after fleeing the war-devastated Lebanon. This as the government lauded the OFWs remittances surge to $1.1 billion in June, 18.1 percent more than a year earlier. Balajadia left a husband and two children.

"And to make it more evident that the government is inutile in providing local jobs for Filipinos, Labor Secretary Art Brion can do no more than give priorities to members of families of displaced OFWs from Lebanon for jobs consideration in South Korea," ended Gonzaga.

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