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Comment by lawgimenez | Hacker News Reader

As a Filipino, I have heard so many stories of abuse not just in Arab countries but also in Hong Kong and Singapore.

edit:

I'm almost 40 now and stories like these have been prevalent since I was a kid.

There is also significant cases before and currently in South Korea, namely illegal immigrants working at farms with nigh-slave labour conditions and factory workers in Samsung/Hyundai etc large multinationals

US farming is rife with indentured servitude / slave conditions, in cooperation with ICE and law enforcement

I like how US federal overtime laws specifically exclude agricultural workers.

I cannot imagine any reasoning to do this other than to take advantage of farm workers that are poor and probably do not know English.

So politically, the nation wanted people to have a minimum, albeit pathetic, pay to quality of life at work ratio. But even then, it was okay to explicitly screw at least one tribe of people. And entering 2023, there is still no political impetus to fix this.

Everyone gets screwed commensurate to their organized labor power. Industries of "illegal" immigrants have the least leverage, and that's reflected in institutional legal frameworks

There was a case recently of a couple in San Francisco holding their nanny against her will.

This is new, Americans/Canadians/EU are the most friendly with immigrants. An isolated case maybe.

Why do people still go? Pure desperation? A few actual success stories?

This is the question we should be asking. As an African I know a few people, qualified teachers who migrate to UK and US to care for elderly there. I don't think the world wants to answer that question. I see headline after headline on the plight of refugees and immigrants and yet the people in leadership positions for those countries where immigrants come from are never really asked any tough persistent questions. I see the same leaders addressing the UN and often accusing the countries that accept refugees from their own country of ill treating them. Talk about hypocrisy. Anyway a root cause analysis is needed but everyone seems content to deal with the symptoms so the underlying problems causing desperation and seeking of greener pastures at all costs continue.

In Philippines the jobs are concentrated on the capital Manila, and a couple of Metropolitan cities. But the rest are in the province with scarce job opportunities. Plus residing in the capital is not easy with cost of living very high and crowded. Mainly the salaries are very low plus survivorship bias to those who made it.

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