Envoy denies share-out of sheltered domestics

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KUWAIT CITY, March 10: The Philippine Embassy vehemently denied a malicious tweet being spread allegedly by a foreign recruitment agency against the embassy for conniving with an advocacy group to encourage Filipino household service workers to escape from employers and those who run to the embassy are in turn allowed to work in some social events.

The tweet written in Arabic posted a photo of a Filipino Community leader grabbed from his Facebook account and stated: “This man of Filipino nationality works in the Ministry of Health and has an account on Facebook through which the smuggling of workers to the Philippine Embassy and operates them in concerts, weddings and events, so please ask the Ministry of Interior to follow up this account and ask to investigate.

“This is totally not true. In fact, I even spoke to the Director of the Office of Domestic Workers Affairs (ODWA) who also informed me about this malicious tweet being spread on the social media. We never let those who run to the shelter go out and work again. They are all staying in the shelter waiting for their repatriation and for the record the embassy doesn’t allow the wards to go out and work at a price of KD 600 as some unscrupulous individuals have been spreading, ” stated Philippine Ambassador to Kuwait Renato Pedro Villa.

Villa explained that some of the Filipino organizations endorse to the embassy cases of distressed OFWs who are requesting to be rescued from their abusive employers but Filipino leaders do not carry on the rescue. “All the cases referred to us by Filipino groups or individuals, we assign them to the case officers at the embassy who will coordinate with the Kuwaiti police authorities who in turn will help extract the distressed OFW from the abusive employer. We always seek the help of Kuwaiti authorities and those who are rescued will stay at the POLO-OWWA shelter till their repatriation,” stressed Villa.

The Ambassador informed that they have already sent a note verbale to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs requesting the latter to take appropriate action on the malicious tweet. “We are requesting the Ministry’s guidance and advice as to the possible measures and actions that the Filipino community organizations can adopt and take against malicious and unfounded twitter and other cyber allegations and attacks,” he pointed out.

Meanwhile, the Filipino leader whose photo was posted on Twitter immediately sought the assistance and advice of the Philippine Embassy. “I categorically deny what is written on that tweet. My group AKO OFW and I have never rescued distressed household service workers. What we do is document cases of maltreated HSWs who need help and we submit all these to the embassy for appropriate action. We don’t do the rescue. It’s the embassy with the help of the Kuwaiti police that helps in extracting abused HSWs,” stated Dr Chie Umandap, the Founder and Chairman of AKO OFW, an advocacy group based in Kuwait that helps Overseas Filipino Workers.

Umandap who already sought the advice of his legal counsel, claimed that the tweet is one of the alleged moves being taken by a Philippine recruitment agency together with the Foreign recruitment agency to thwart the efforts of advocacy groups and other Filipino community leaders in helping distressed OFWs amid the ongoing deployment ban of newly hired skilled and household service workers bound for Kuwait.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte last month banned the deployment of new overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) to Kuwait after Filipina HSW Joanna Daniela Demafelis was found dead in a freezer. Currently, there are over 1,000 distressed OFWs at the POLO-OWWA shelter, the highest number of wards ever recorded among the POLO-OWWA shelters in the world.

The Philippine Embassy has only three rescue teams to attend to over 30 rescue calls daily mostly from maltreated HSWs while an average of 20- 30 distressed OFW run to the POLOOWWA shelter to seek refuge.

The Philippines and Kuwait still have to meet and sit down that would pave the way for the signing of the Bilateral Agreement on the Deployment and Protection of Filipino Household Service Workers to Kuwait. There are more than 250,000 OFWs in Kuwait and around 65 per cent are household service workers while the rest are semi-skilled, skilled and professional workers.

By Michelle Fe Santiago Arab Times Staff

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