Seventy years after the adoption of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and twenty-five years of the 1993 Vienna Declaration and Programmes of Action (VDPA), human rights are found in country’s constitutions and also incorporated in regional instruments. However, there is no issue as heated as the universality character of human rights.
In the Southeast Asian region, the Philippines tops the list as the highest in terms of remittances from their exported labor. In 2015, the country received more than US$30 billion in remittances — which makes it the third highest in the entire world. While many of the emerging economies as well as industrialized nations rely on these remittances and foreign workers, many stories filter out from certain nations of exploitation and abuse inflicted upon these migrant workers.
By Jose Santos P. Ardivilla
The UDHR and Migrant Workers Rights in ASEAN - Jolovan Wham
The UDHR and Democracy in ASEAN - Dr. Naruemon Thambhumpon
The UDHR and LGBTI Rights in ASEAN - Dr. Dédé Oetomo
PhD Student in Fine Arts at Texas Tech University, Lubbock, and Assistant Professor at the Department of Visual Communication of the University of the Philippines Diliman
