The Center for Women’s Resources (CWR) welcomes Mary Jane Veloso’s release after the grant of an absolute pardon. Her freedom is long-overdue and is a victory for Mary Jane, her family, and the movements in the Philippines, Indonesia, and across the world that fought for her freedom for more than a decade.
However, CWR emphasizes that the pardon must never be construed as an admission of guilt, nor her freedom must not be presented as an act of presidential sympathy or personal benevolence.
“Mary Jane Veloso is free today not because the powerful suddenly became compassionate. She is free because people organized, persisted, and refused to let her case be buried,” CWR Executive Director Cham Perez said. “Her freedom is a victory of the movements in the Philippines and Indonesia that fought for her life and dignity.”
CWR added that their sustained campaigns helped shed light on the realities of human trafficking, illegal recruitment, and the vulnerability of Filipino migrant workers.
The governments of the Philippines and Indonesia eventually took action amid sustained public pressure and continuing negotiations. Mary Jane’s transfer to the Philippines in December 2024 and the subsequent grant of absolute pardon show that state action is possible when movements compel governments to respond.
Women pushed into migration
Mary Jane’s case cannot be separated from the conditions that force millions of Filipinos to seek work abroad. The lack of decent jobs and sustainable livelihoods in the absence of national industrialization and rural development has forced them to leave their families and communities to work overseas.
This migration is reinforced by the government’s labor-export policy and by an economy that continues to depend heavily on remittances instead of building domestic industries, strengthening agriculture, and creating secure employment.
In 2024, approximately 2.19 million overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) were deployed with their remittances reaching a record-breaking ₱262.20 billion.
Women constituted the majority of OFWs in 2024: 1.25 million, or 57.2 percent of the total. In other words, nearly six out of every ten Filipino migrant workers were women. The majority (68.4 percent) of whom were employed in elementary occupations – routine and low-paid jobs such as cleaning, restocking supplies, and performing basic maintenance in apartments, hotels, offices, and other facilities.
Increasing cases of trafficking and criminalization of migrant women
Government data reveal the continued vulnerability of OFWs. The Department of Migrant Workers (DMW) said in 2025 that there were some 3,000 overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) with cases abroad, most of which were labor or work-related. The figure included 24 Filipinos on death row.
The same year, the DMW reported processing 479 illegal-recruitment cases. Authorities also took down 85,538 social media pages targeting current and aspiring OFWs, including 79,445 illegal recruitment posts on Facebook and TikTok. Thirty-two illegal recruitment companies were shut down.
The struggle continues
As we celebrate Mary Jane’s freedom, we reiterate that struggle does not end with her release. We call on Filipinos to continue fighting for a country where women and their families do not have to leave home simply to find work to earn a living and to change the system that depends on the export of Filipino labor instead of creating decent jobs and livelihood through building national industries and rural development.
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