Manila: Following a rise in reports of abuse, including murder, overseas Filipino workers urged the Philippine president on Friday to take action to increase their safety and protect their rights and welfare in Kuwait.
In Kuwait, where 35-year-old maid Jullebee Ranara was killed and her charred body was discovered abandoned in a desert in late January, more than 268,000 Filipinos, mostly women, reside and work.
Calls for a deployment ban up until a review of the bilateral labour agreements arose in response to the killing, which sent shockwaves throughout the Philippines. The deployment of new employees to Kuwait was stopped by the Philippine government on Wednesday, just days after it had suspended the accreditation of fresh recruitment firms in the Gulf state.
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The Philippine government and President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. were addressed by Migrante International during the Friday media forum in Manila with a number of protection-related demands, including the provision of immediate legal, medical, and financial support to all distressed OFWs in shelters in Kuwait and the Middle East, as well as assistance to their families.
The group is the principal organisation for the over 2 million Filipinos who work abroad and send home remittances, which make up about 9% of the nation's GDP.
According to Joanna Concepcion, chair of Migrante International, "the government must publicly release reports on the conditions of distressed OFWs in Kuwait and other Gulf states on the reported cases of rights violations and abuse, report on actions taken by the Philippine government, report on the status of cases and accountability."
Additionally, it must enforce stronger protection, monitoring, and enforcement mechanisms and policies that proactively uphold OFW rights and effectively regulate the recruitment and deployment sector. (It must also) uphold the rights of OFWs under international labour standards and agreements.
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Filipinos from Kuwait who had joined online were featured in the media forum. One of them, who identified herself as Ester and hails from the province of Surigao del Sur, has been employed as a housemaid for the previous 10 months.
I haven't taken a day off in those ten months. They also took my civil ID and passport. I've only got five hours to sleep," she remarked. "I'm hoping the president will take a look at the problems facing Filipino domestic workers in Kuwait."
Analyn, a different Filipina, was just waiting to be able to return home, but her employer wouldn't let her go back to her recruitment agency until she paid back the money used to bring her to Kuwait.
"We are overworked, and we don't have a day off. Even worse, my employer would send me to work at someone else's home, she claimed. "My body is on the verge of failing. I'm hoping someone can assist me.
According to data from the Philippine Department of Migrant Workers, there were over 24,000 instances of abuse and violation of Filipino workers in Kuwait in 2022, up significantly from the 6,500 instances in 2016.
Following the discovery of the body of Filipina domestic helper Joanna Daniela Demafelis in a freezer at an abandoned apartment, the Philippines banned worker deployment to the Gulf nation in 2018.
Following the signing of a worker protection agreement between the two nations, the ban was partially lifted that same year.
But after the 2019 murders of Filipina maid Constancia Lago Dayag and Jeanelyn Villavende, who was tortured to death by her employer, it was once more introduced in January 2020.
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When Kuwaiti authorities accused Villavende's employer of murder and gave her a hanging verdict, the embargo was lifted.