On their first day of work abroad in 2014, nearly 1000 women each presented their new employer with a small packet of dried mango and a photo of their family.

The result? The employers were less likely to sexually harass and verbally abuse the women, and more likely to pay their salaries on time.

The women were taking part in an experiment by Toman Barsbai, Associate Professor in Economics at the University of Bristol, in collaboration with the Philippine government and an international research team. The study’s aim: to stop householders from mistreating their migrant domestic workers.

Employer abuse of Filipino domestic workers

Barsbai is interested in helping people make the difficult decision of whether to migrate – and in increasing their chances of success when they do. “People move when the benefits of migration exceed its costs,” he explains. “And the costs are not just the plane ticket.”

For the 272 million people living outside their country of origin, overseas work has profound benefits. They earn much higher incomes, which they share with their families back home. In 2018, migrants sent home remittances worth US$689 billion – four times more than official development assistance provided that year.

These migrants include the many women who leave their homes and loved ones in the Philippines to escape poverty by cleaning, cooking and caring for families in private households.

But as for many migrant workers, this temporary move often comes at a major cost to the women’s welfare. In Barsbai’s own survey of Filipino domestic workers in Saudi Arabia, many said: “they had been treated poorly by members of the employer’s household and had not felt respected as human beings,” he reports. “Some said they felt to be considered ‘slaves’ or ‘machines.’”

More specifically, 5% of Filipino domestic workers in Saudi Arabia and Hong Kong, both common destination countries, said they had been sexually harassed by their employer. Eight per cent reported being physically assaulted, 27% did not receive their payment on time and 60% were not allowed a weekly day of rest.

Helping the Philippine government help its migrant workers

Barsbai approached the Philippine government’s Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) in 2013 to explore fresh solutions to this distressing problem.

Together with the OWWA and an international team of researchers, he designed and set up the experiment.

In 2014, OWWA staff issued new guidance, devised by the study team, to around 1,000 randomly selected domestic workers at a Pre-Departure Orientation Seminar. All Filipino workers attend this training session before they move abroad to help them settle into their new role and country. These workers were setting off for new jobs in either Saudi Arabia or Hong Kong.

The trainers instructed the workers to give their new employers a small gift of dried mangoes (a Philippine delicacy) upon arrival. The gift was to act as a conversation starter that would then allow the worker to share a photo of their family back home. For the three-quarters of the workers who were mothers, the photo included their young children.

A decline in mistreatment

Two years later, and compared with 1,000 women who did not receive and act upon these instructions, the Hong Kong workers were 13% less likely to report being shouted at by their employer. They were 11% more likely to have been given enough food and 8% more likely to be allowed to leave the employer’s house.

In Saudi Arabia, where domestic workers tend to suffer worse conditions, the women were 47% less likely to be sexually harassed: 4% of workers in the intervention group reported sexual harassment vs 7% in the group who did not receive the intervention. They were 12% more likely to receive their salary on time and, tellingly, 21% more likely to extend their contract with the same employer.

Humanising effects

“I was sceptical at first that this intervention would work,” admits Barsbai. “It’s such a cheap, simple thing.” It worked, however, because it helped the employers realise something that ought to have been obvious: that their staff are human too.

The research team had designed the intervention to change employers’ behaviour by narrowing the social distance between themselves and employees. “The workers told us that the gift and photo really helped to present themselves as human beings and more relatable to their employers,” says Barsbai. “One worker even told us that her employer had started praying for her kids and sending them birthday presents.”

A follow-up experiment with potential employers in Hong Kong, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates confirmed the humanising effect. In an online game where employers choose how much money to keep for themselves and how much to send to domestic workers, they gave more and kept less if they had seen a worker’s family photo.

A complement to regulations

Barsbai stresses that the intervention should not replace laws and regulations designed to stop employers from mistreating migrant workers. But it goes further than existing policies have been able to.

“Many governments of destination countries just don’t see the welfare of temporary migrants as their responsibility,” he explains. Migrants’ countries of origin will often try and protect their citizens abroad, but they cannot directly implement policies in other countries. Bilateral or multinational agreements among governments are often needed to protect migrants.  These are difficult to secure, however, and even harder to enforce.

Domestic workers are also highly restricted and vulnerable. Not only do they live in their employers’ homes, many are forbidden from leaving the house. Employers in Saudi Arabia often confiscate workers’ phones and passports. “If things go wrong, they can’t even reach out for help or look up advice.”

For Barsbai, the study suggests that there may be other ways of humanising workers that could be used alongside legal and institutional reforms. “What’s important about this intervention, and also why it works, however, is that a person can implement it by themselves,” he concludes. “And despite all the constraints they face.”

Download the study here: Social Distance and the Mistreatment of Migrant Workers