Overseas Filipino Workers' Welfare Top Priority

As a result of the virtual meeting convened by the Philippine Coalition of Domestic Workers and the Federation of Owners of Recruitment Offices, Bassam Al-Shammari, a specialist in domestic worker affairs, revealed that the meeting focused on developing a new system for handling offices (after the Philippines resumed sending workers), reports Al-Jarida. Recruiting offices will be blacklisted if OFWs hired through them suffer any kind of problems "and their new contracts will be suspended until all the workers' problems are resolved."

Al-Shammari explained that this mechanism is a stumbling block to recruitment from Manila, since it will increase the suffering of the offices, negatively affecting the number of workers in the country, indicating that such a mechanism is followed in some countries that are not committed to protecting expatriate workers' rights. During the meeting, he said Kuwaiti and Filipino views were discussed to ensure the return of new domestic workers, and the Philippine Alliance of Agencies expressed their readiness to cooperate widely in the process of resuming the recruitment of workers.
Al-Shammari said, “Those participating in the conference enumerated the reasons for the suspension, the most prominent of which was the recent murder of some Filipino workers. The embassy has continued to shelter workers in its building without finding a radical solution to this outstanding issue, as well. Additionally, there is a large number of labor disputes related to financial rights, including irregular payments of monthly salaries or refusal of end-of-service payments by the employer, as well as withholding workers' documents, including their civil IDs and passports, in violation of both the law and the ministerial decisions in this area.”

Al-Shammari indicated that the conferees agreed on the need to notify government agencies of the observations discussed during the meeting to avoid them in the future, expecting the recruitment process to resume again by the end of next May, stressing the need to activate the role of the expatriate workers’ accommodation center affiliated to the Public Authority for Manpower, in addition to the need to oblige the deportation department of the Public Authority for Manpower to pay the expenses of workers’ travel to their countries, especially in light of the overcrowding of workers at the embassy.

 

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