Gov’t to bring home 800 OFWs from Kuwait

The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) on Saturday confirmed that 800 overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) in Kuwait are set to go home, and more Filipino workers in the Gulf state will be repatriated in the coming days. (Photo by xiquinhosilva/Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0)

MANILA — The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) on Saturday confirmed that 800 overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) in Kuwait are set to go home, and more Filipino workers in the Gulf state will be repatriated in the coming days.

The move comes after President Rodrigo Duterte’s pronouncement that Filipino workers in Kuwait who want to go home may be repatriated within the next 72 hours.

“That’s the first batch. We are processing more,” said Raul Dado, executive director of the DFA Office of Migrant Workers Affairs.

Dado added that the travel expenses will be deducted to the DFA’s assistance-to-nationals (ATN) fund.

Currently, there are around 250,000 Filipinos in Kuwait.

Duterte earlier threatened to impose a total employment ban on the country due to reports of maltreatment and abuses of some employers to its Filipino workers.

In 2016, deaths of 82 Filipinos were recorded in Kuwait and the number has increased by at least 20 percent in 2017.

Last year, the Philippines also received grim news after the Kuwaiti government carried the death penalty on Jakatia Pawa, a migrant worker in Kuwait who was accused and sentenced to death even after appealing innocence for the 2007 murder of her employer’s daughter.