RHAPSODY
Reproductive Health and Rights Advocacy, Protection and Services
for Overseas Filipino Workers

Reproductive Health and Rights Advocacy, Protection and Services for Overseas Filipino Workers (RHAPSODY) is a two-year project that aims to increase awareness on SRHR and improve access to reproductive health care services of Overseas Filipino Household and Service Workers (OFHSWs), more popularly known as domestic helpers or workers, and the families they left behind in the Philippines.

This project was born out of the need to respond to the situation of Filipino migrant or overseas workers who, along with the family they left behind in the country, bear the social costs of international labor migration. While their remittances continue to help keep the country’s economy afloat and allow their families to enjoy a comfortable and adequately provided life, they and their left behind families suffer from a host of problems that affect their physical, mental, emotional, sexual and reproductive health.

This project, which started in May 2007, chose Hong Kong as the pilot site because it has consistently been the top destination of OFHSWs over the past decade and is geographically very near to the Philippines. It has also chosen the top three sending provinces of Benguet, Pampanga and Pangasinan as pilot sites for interventions on OFHSW families.

This project hopes to mitigate the social costs of international labor migration and ensure the SRHR of OFSHWs in Hong Kong and their left behind families by:

1. Increasing access to SRHR information and services by OFHSWs in the Philippines prior to their departure to Hong Kong;
2. Increasing the use of support services, including SRHR services, by OFHSW families;
3. Increasing access to SRHR information and services of OFHSWs in Hong Kong;
4. Establishing national advocacy policy network and mechanisms in the Philippines and in Hong Kong that will provide a continuing and sustainable support to sexual and reproductive health and rights of OFHSWs; and
5. Creating a sustainable model that will improve access by OFHSWs to SRHR information and services.

This project is being funded by the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF).