Once an occupation traditionally associated with poor rural women who migrated to cities in search of work, paid domestic work is now a transnational occupational niche for millions of women from Asia’s less well-off countries-including the Philippines, Indonesia, Burma, Sri Lanka, and India-who embark on sojourns to the richer countries of the world-such as Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Canada, the Middle East and parts of Europe-in search of a more lucrative livelihood and promising futures for their families and themselves. These private and public institutions that form international networks involved in securing employment contracts and arranging migration passages for transnational domestic workers keep the process highly commoditized and, arguably, exploitative.
Transnational domestic workers are important contributors not only to the economies of the countries that receive them, but also to their own countries through the growing volume of remittances sent home. Despite their crucial role in the global economy, transnational domestic workers, mostly female, continue to migrate and work under unfavorable conditions and remain highly vulnerable to exploitation.
This volume is an attempt to enhance not only academic research on transnational domestic workers, but also the ability of governments, NGOs and civil society groups-especially in sending and receiving countries-to derive appropriate policies and make recommendations to address the problems directly confronted by Asian transnational domestic workers.
