The International Labour Organization (ILO) promotes rights-based reporting on labour migration, and emphasized the partnerships we have with journalists to produce balanced reporting that tells all sides of the migrant worker’s story. ILO Country Office for the Philippines (ILO CO-Manila) is currently implementing the Integrated Programme on Fair Recruitment, or the Fair Project, a project supported by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), which supports the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP). The project intends to train journalists covering issues of labour migration, and to present ILO’s perspective on durable and comprehensive solutions related to employment and the fair recruitment of workers abroad.

 
The collaboration provided an opportunity to involve our constituents and partners to facilitate greater knowledge sharing (presenting empirical findings from research, major accomplishments from projects etc.) and networking for the purposes of story production. This collaboration has resulted in the production of knowledge products, which include an anthology of stories, written by the journalists, and a media glossary which has been developed by a group of international media experts.

To present these knowledge products, NUJP and ILO will jointly conduct a school visit at the University of the Philippines-College of Mass Communications, Department of Journalism to meet with students and faculty members, and to discuss relevant issues in labour migration from the Philippines. They will also hold a breakfast meeting with different media professionals to discuss the Fair project and its media component to gain appreciation from news editors, producers and educators about the value of fair media reporting on labour migration, particularly on fair recruitment. These discussions will take place in Quezon City on 8-9 February 2018 and will be facilitated by Mr Charles Autheman, an international expert engaged by the ILO Fair Project, and NUJP Chair Atty Jocelyn Clemente, who will also present the outputs of the training programme.

Finally, NUJP and ILO will launch the anthology of stories, entitled “Fair Perspective: Stories of Filipino migrant workers in the media,” published by different Filipino journalists in different online news portals to popularize this joint initiative.