Face-to-Face with Sabah Deportees by Clara Rita A. Padilla

October 8, 2008, Manila--EnGendeRights, represented by lawyer Clara Rita A. Padilla, was part of the team that went to Zamboanga for a fact- finding mission on the state of Filipinos who are being massively deported from Sabah by the Malaysian government. Representative Luz Ilagan of Gabriela Women’s Party and Connie Bragas-Regalado of Migrante International were also part of the team.

Clara Rita Padilla said, “In this fact-finding mission, I was face-to-face with the harsh realities our fellow Filipinos confront—the lack of access to education, lack of jobs, poverty and the impact of war in the conflict-ridden areas in Mindanao. Most of the deportees are unschooled or undereducated from Tawi-Tawi, Sulu, Region 9, and Basilan. Women from these areas experiencing the same harsh realities fall prey to trafficking in Sabah.”

Atty. Padilla continued, “It’s really unfortunate. You have Filipinos who suffer human rights violations at the detention centers and yet they still want to go back to Sabah to find work.”

“In February 2009, Malaysia will be reviewed by the Human Rights Council (HRC) for the Universal Periodic Review and that will be an important opportunity for us to hold the Malaysian government accountable for its compliance with the conventions it has ratified such as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child,” added Atty. Padilla.

“Deportation or forcible transfer of population, rape, sexual slavery when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack against any civilian population is a crime against humanity under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court but Malaysia has not ratified the Rome Statute,” said Atty. Padilla.

The fact that Malaysia has not ratified the Rome Statute, the Migrants Convention, Torture Convention and the Optional Protocol to the Torture Convention, Racial Discrimination Convention, Civil and Political Rights Convention, Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Convention, the Optional Protocol to the Women’s Convention, the Disabilities Convention and the Optional Protocol to the Disabilities Convention and the Enforced Disappearance Convention will also be reviewed by the HRC. The HRC will also review the reports of special rapporteurs on Malaysia and the non-issuance of a "standing invitation" to the Special Rapporteurs. A standing invitation is an open invitation for the Rapporteurs to visit Malaysia.

Atty. Padilla continued that, “The state of the Filipino deportees can also be brought as urgent appeals to the UN Special Rapporteur on Migrants and Trafficking in Persons. In the case of trafficking of women, both the Malaysian and the Philippine governments have failed in their obligation to exercise due diligence to prevent, investigate and punish acts of violence against women.”[1]

In the report of then UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants Gabriela Rodríguez Pizarro on her 2002 visit to the Philippines, she recommended that Philippine “consular and embassy officials should investigate and document incidents of abuses during the deportation proceeding and detention up to the moment of embarkation from Malaysia.” In our fact finding mission, we found no such investigation and documentation of abuses being done by the Philippine consular and embassy officials.

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[1] See the Philippines “Note verbale dated 18 April 2007 from the Permanent Mission of the Philippines to the United Nations addressed to the President of the General Assembly”, par. 15 states, “In recognition of the contributions of migrant workers to the society and the economy of both sending and receiving States in the region, as was emphasized in the ASEAN Declaration on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Migrant Workers, the Philippines will continue to advance the cause of migrant workers.”






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