Tanya Bindra /Al Jazeera
Children search for gold left over from small-scale mining projects in the Compostela Valley, located in the Davao Region of Mindanao in the southern Philippines. About one-third of Filipinos live under the poverty line, and many experience underemployment.
Tanya Bindra /Al Jazeera
A young girl returns home near one of the many factories that are part of the Cavite Export Processing Zone, 30km south of the Philippines' capital, Manila. Lack of opportunity at home has led about one in 10 Filipinos to either work or live outside the country.
Tanya Bindra /Al Jazeera
Outside of Manila, a piece of tarp proclaiming "No Time for Love" functions as a wall in one family's home. About 4,000 Filipinos leave the country each day to work abroad.
Tanya Bindra /Al Jazeera
A boy lights a candle in Culiot, a neighbourhood in northern Manila that rarely has access to power. Many illegal recruitment agencies scout out young women here to work as domestic workers.
Tanya Bindra /Al Jazeera
A newspaper ad promotes domestic helper positions in Hong Kong, calling it the "stepping stone to Canada". Many jobs in Hong Kong and Singapore are described as tickets to Canada, Australia and Europe, as workers find it easier to receive a contract in countries with lower salaries for a few years before attempting to land a job in countries that offer better pay.
Tanya Bindra /Al Jazeera
Potential domestic workers are photographed with identifying numbers and hands clasped at a recruitment agency. Recruiters market workers as submissive and industrious. Domestic workers abroad are especially at risk of isolation, sexual assault and abuse as their ability to work is tied to their employer, whom they are often required to live with.
Tanya Bindra /Al Jazeera
The faces of deployed domestic workers decorate the wall at a recruitment agency in Cotabato City in Mindanao. Many Muslim employers in the Middle East and Indonesia prefer to employ ethnic Moro women, who are also Muslim in faith.
Tanya Bindra /Al Jazeera
Soon-to-be workers register their papers at a PDOS (pre-departure orientation session) that is required by the Philippine state. The Philippines Overseas Employment Agency promotes and monitors the overseas employment of Filipinos by directly engaging in the processes of training, recruitment and deployment.
Tanya Bindra /Al Jazeera
During a PDOS for women who will be domestic workers in the Middle East, a video on self-defence is presented after a discussion on work-appropriate clothes and demeanor. PDOS seminars use the rhetoric of sacrifice, encouraging participants to regularly send money back home.
Tanya Bindra /Al Jazeera
Shown here en route from Manila to Hong Kong, most of the travellers are first-time domestic workers. Money sent home from abroad accounts for roughly 10 percent of the Philippines' GDP.
Tanya Bindra /Al Jazeera
Above, the contract of a worker who worked in Doha, Qatar. She later returned to the Philippines after her contract and working rights were violated. Many migrants pay unusually high recruitment fees or engage in labour that was not described in their contract, and some even endure slave-like conditions. Some are reluctant to report cases of malpractice, as they are afraid of losing their jobs and the prospect of returning home without repaying their debts.
Tanya Bindra /Al Jazeera
Two Filipinos find safety in a shelter for domestic workers in Hong Kong. Their employers had withheld their pay and were told they would have to pay off their recruitment agencies first. According to Hong Kong law, migrant workers must find a new employment contract within two weeks, or else they must leave. This is often not enough time to file and follow up with a legal complaint if the fault of termination lies with an employer or agency.
Tanya Bindra /Al Jazeera
Above, Felicitas holds one of her grandchildren at their home in Baguio in the northern Philippines. Felicitas worked in Hong Kong for more than 17 years as a domestic worker to provide for her four children. Now two of her daughters work in Saudi Arabia as domestic helpers, and Felicitas raises her granddaughter who was left behind so her mother could work abroad.
Tanya Bindra /Al Jazeera
Candles are lit in Cotabato City, Mindanao in order to remember those overseas workers that died while working abroad.
Tanya Bindra /Al Jazeera
Migrante International chairperson Garry Martinez protests in Manila as Philippines President Benigno Aquino delivers his State of the Nation address. Migrante International is a migrants rights' network that has criticised the government's inability to reduce widespread unemployment and landlessness, the root cause of out-migration.