DOLE considers deployment ban expansion to Middle East

FILE: Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III said in a statement that an expanded deployment ban may be imposed if other Arab countries with known rampant cases of maltreatment and abuse fail to assure and build up the welfare of Filipino workers. (PNA photo)

The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) on Wednesday, February 28, announced that the deployment ban involving overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) may be expanded to other countries in the Middle East.

Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III said in a statement that an expanded deployment ban may be imposed if other Arab countries with known rampant cases of maltreatment and abuse fail to assure and build up the welfare of Filipino workers.

“We will impose the same restrictions (like in Kuwait) and will consider deployment ban if strengthened protection of our OFWs was not assured,” Bello said.

The Labor Secretary set Saudi Arabia as an example of a country that applies the kafala system, which he explained has “a common malpractice that the employer trades or switches their worker to other employers.”

“That’s what they call the kafala system and it is always for consideration,” he said.

In the Middle East, this kafala system or sponsorship system bans workers from leaving the country without the permission of their employers. Aside from this, it also forbids Filipino workers from withdrawing or switching jobs if their employers did not agree with it.

The banning of this system, according to Bello, is among the provisions that the Philippine government is pushing for in the memorandum of agreement with the Kuwait government.

The Labor department said that they already sent a team, headed by Undersecretary Ciriaco Lagunzad III, to Middle East to further determine the Filipino workers’ condition and immediately give response and assistance to their needs.

Bello added that the report of the team will serve as a basis for enhancing existing bilateral labor agreements with Arab countries to provide further protection to OFWs.

“If there is an existing bilateral labor agreement but there are still rampant cases of maltreatment, then maybe we need to amend the agreement. The minimum demand of our President is that we will only deploy in countries where our workers are properly and effectively protected,” the Labor secretary said.

Upon the instruction of President Rodrigo Duterte, the Philippine government on February 12 issued a total ban deployment of OFWs in Kuwait.

This decision came in the midst of investigations on seven Filipino household workers killed in the Gulf state, among these cases was the case of Joanna Demafelis whose body was found inside a freezer in an abandoned apartment and believed to have been there for over a year.

The autopsy report showed that the Filipina worker died due to the severe beating she allegedly obtained in the hands of her employer. Her body bore torture wounds such as bruises and a broken hipbone.

Despite the arrest of Demafelis’ employers, Nader Essam Assaf and his Syrian wife Mona, the deployment ban remains.