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Low wages and lack of opportunities are tearing families apart as parents seek work abroad. In the first of a series on migrant workers in Southeast Asia, AsiaNews examines what drives millions of people from the region to look for work abroad, and what migration means for those who stay.
Isidro, Philippines/Kunilan, Indonesia, August 26, 2024. – When Gina Fabiano first considered leaving her wooden house in Rodriguez City, Philippines, to work as a domestic worker in Saudi Arabia, 7,000 kilometers away, her children begged her not to do it, Channel News Asia reported. (Channel News Asia)
They had never been apart, let alone for such a long time. They said they didn’t know how to live without her.
But at the time, the 43-year-old mother of five felt she had no choice and worked in the Middle East for three years between 2016 and 2019.
His family’s farmland has become increasingly barren since 2002, when the government decided to open a landfill nearby.
Mrs. Fabiano and her husband work as garbage collectors alongside other families whose farmland has also been destroyed, sifting through the mountains of trash in Metro Manila, about an hour’s drive away, to find metals, plastics and other valuables to sell to recycling plants.
The family’s income has always been unstable. Ms. Fabiano and her husband earn only 1,000 to 2,000 pesos ($17.10 to $34.20) a month. It’s barely enough to keep food, clothing and school for their children.
Then, in 2016, her mother died and Ms. Fabiano, the second oldest of 14 children, had to step into the role of matriarch for her siblings, some of whom were still in school at the time.
“When my mother was sick, we had no money to take her to hospital. “At that moment I thought, if my mother had worked abroad before, maybe she would not have died.” Mr Fabiano stroked his thumb over the cross around her neck.
So when she had the opportunity that year to work as a domestic worker in Saudi Arabia for $400 a month, she jumped at the chance.
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