Philippines prepares to black list Kuwait’s labor offices

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KUWAIT CITY, Feb 1:  Following the murder of an Overseas Filipino Worker, Jullibee Ranara, The Philippine government has suspended the accreditation of foreign recruitment agencies in Kuwait. The Philippines is studying to blacklist Kuwait recruitment agencies that have violated labor agreements between Kuwait and the Philippines.

The Ministry of Migrant labor in the Philippines stated that the Kuwait recruitment offices will be added to the blacklist and will prevent any Filipino workers from being sent to Kuwait in future, reports Al Rai. 1st Secretary of Migrant Workers, Susan Ople stated that the ministry officials are preparing to discuss with their Kuwait counterpart about weakness and loopholes in bilateral labor agreement between Kuwait and the Philippines. Under new rules monthly monitoring reports on domestic workers and individual employment contracts is also limited to 20 per week for every agency/ labor office.

The local recruitment industry expressed strong opposition to calls to ban the deployment of Filipino domestic helpers to Kuwait, reports Philstar. A deployment ban could do more harm to Filipino workers since it could encourage them to leave the country illegally, according to recruitment consultant Manny Geslani. “OFWs who are victims of human trafficking will be devoid of the protection of the DMW office or POLO and the labor agreement forged by both countries for the welfare and protection of the OFWs,” Geslani said.

Instead of imposing a deployment ban, he urged the government to evaluate the current situation and just limit the number of those being sent to the Middle Eastern country. In a television interview yesterday, Ople said her office is looking at blacklisting erring recruitment agencies deploying OFWs to Kuwait. “We also need to discuss, there are a lot, actually – reporting mechanisms, tracking of welfare cases and the possible whitelisting and blacklisting of recruitment agencies as what we have now in Saudi Arabia. We will explore all possibilities,” she added. The DMW has already issued a preventive suspension order against the Ranara’s employer.

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