Filipino former teacher wins international trade union award
Filipino former math teacher France Castro puts her own life at risk for the education union in her country. This year she wins the FNV trade union rights prize and is a guest at the AOb in Utrecht.
Image: Ricalde Photographie
“Last July, three Filipino teachers were murdered in one day,” said Jelmer Evers, director for the AOb. Together with Education International, a worldwide association of teachers' unions, carried the AOb this spring France Castro as a candidate to win the international prize. It does not surprise him that Castro has taken off: "She brought unity to several teachers' organizations and helped the Philippine teachers' union to grow. She has been a member of the national parliament since 2016 and is also trying to establish the rights of teachers, among others. .”
Gross violence
In the Philippines, people who work in education are having a hard time. "They get a less than livable salary," says Trudy Kerperien, who works for the AOb international trade union work. "Protests and strikes because of the high unemployment and financial uncertainty are brutally crushed by the Duterte administration."
Teachers in the Philippines are paid a less than livable salary
Kerperien: “France Castro regularly went on missions to regions occupied by soldiers to map out human rights violations there. She was arrested in November 2018. She and others tried to evacuate vans with children and their teachers from a dangerous part of the Philippines. Castro has been accused of kidnapping and human smuggling, but was fortunately released on parole after considerable international pressure. ”
Vital importance
De AOb wanted to show with Castro's presentation that union work in other countries can be of vital importance. And that at the same time it is sometimes dangerous to do. Members of the Philippine education union ACT are regularly portrayed as terrorists, persecuted and threatened with death, Kerperien said.
In 2015, the FNV Trade Union Rights Prize also went to an education union, namely the Turkish one Egitim Sen.
