MANILA: Expatriate Filipino workers on Friday asked the Philippine president to implement measures that would improve their safety and protect their rights and well-being in Kuwait, amid rising reports of abuses including murder.
More than 268,000 Filipinos, mostly women, live and work in Kuwait, where in late January 35-year-old maid Julebi Ranara was murdered and her charred body abandoned in a desert.
The killing sent shock waves throughout the Philippines, prompting calls to ban the deployment pending review of bilateral labor agreements. Days after suspending accreditation of new recruitment agencies in the Gulf country, the Philippine government on Wednesday halted the deployment of first-time workers to Kuwait.
During Friday’s media forum in Manila, Pravasi International presented a series of security demands to the Philippine government and President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., including the provision of immediate legal, medical and financial assistance to all endangered OFWs in shelters in Kuwait and the Middle East and support to their families.
Highlight
• More than 24,000 cases of violations and abuse of Filipino workers were reported in Kuwait in 2022.
• This week, the Philippine government halted the deployment of workers to Kuwait for the first time.
The group is the main organization representing more than 2 million expatriate Filipino workers, whose remittance inflows account for about 9 percent of the country’s GDP.
“The government should publicly release reports on rights violations and abuses on the conditions of distressed OFWs in Kuwait and other Gulf countries, reports on actions taken by the Philippine government, reports on the status of cases and accountability,” Joanna Concepcion , said Overseas International President.
“[It also]must uphold the rights of OFWs in accordance with international labor standards and agreements and implement robust protection, monitoring and enforcement mechanisms and policies that actively uphold the rights of OFWs and promote the recruitment and placement industry.” regulate effectively.”
The media forum included the voices of Filipinos who joined online from Kuwait.
One of them, who identified herself as Ester from Surigao del Sur province, has been working as a domestic help for the past 10 months.
“In those ten months, I never took a single day off. They also took my passport and civil ID. I only have five hours of rest,” she said. “I hope the president pays attention to the plight of Filipino domestic helpers here in Kuwait.”
Another Filipina, Analine, was just waiting to be able to go home, but her employer refused to return her to her recruitment agency until she repaid it, which she did when she was brought to Kuwait. It was already spent.
“We don’t have a day off, we are working too much. My boss used to even send me to work at other houses,” she said. “My body is about to give up. I hope someone can help me.”
According to data from the Philippine Department of Migrant Workers there were more than 24,000 cases of violations and abuse of Filipino workers in Kuwait in 2022 – a significant increase compared to 6,500 such cases in 2016.
In 2018, the Philippines banned the deployment of a worker to the Gulf country after the body of domestic help Joanna Daniela Demafelis was found in a freezer in an abandoned apartment.
The ban was partially lifted after both countries signed a protection agreement for workers in the same year.
But it was reintroduced in January 2020, following the 2019 murders of Filipina maids Constanceia Lago Dayag and Jeanleen Villavende, who were tortured to death by her employer.
The ban was lifted when Kuwaiti authorities accused Villawende’s employer of murder and sentenced him to death by hanging.