The Invisible Filipina Migrant Worker in Saudi Arabia: Analyzing the Perpetuation of Colonial Power Dynamics Through the Feminization of Migrant Care Labor

Authors

• Allyson Collado, St. Mary's University

Files

Contributor

Donoso, Claudia (Faculty Mentor)

Digital Publisher

Digital Commons at St. Mary's University

Publication Date

Spring 2026

Keywords

Filipino women, Migrant workers, Saudi Arabia, Colonial Power, Feminization

Description

Every year, over a million Filipino women move overseas as domestic migrant workers, sending remittances that sustain almost a tenth of the Philippine economy. The Philippine government glorifies these Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) as heroesm, but they are still under-protected and treated as invisible, replaceable commodities in nations like Saudi Arabia.

This paper argues that the exploitation of Filipina migrant care workers is not just a side effect of neoliberal globalization, but a perpetuation of colonial power relations that is built into Philippine labor export policy and Saudi Arabia's legal architecture.

Format

PDF

Size

1 poster

City

San Antonio, Texas

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.