Saudi stops hiring Filipino domestics

By Philip Tubeza
Philippine Daily Inquirer First Posted 08:04:00 03/29/2011

MANILA, Philippines—Saudi Arabia said it would stop the processing of employment contracts for Filipinos household service workers (HSWs) until further notice, Carlos Cao Jr., Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) chief, said Monday.

The Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs relayed this information in a note verbale to the Philippine Embassy in Riyadh on March 12.

According to recruitment industry officials, the ban was connected to the new Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos Act which requires prior to deployment a Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) certification that the rights of domestic helpers would be adequately protected.

“There was a note verbale from the Saudi Foreign Ministry saying that they will no longer cooperate in the verification of contracts,” Cao said in an interview.

The government “is studying the matter very carefully” because it does not want the issue to affect an estimated 1.5 million overseas Filipino workers in the kingdom, he said.

“We will respond to the note verbale and there is now an immediate policy study being done. It is a very sensitive matter. We do not want to add fuel to the fire,” he added.

Cao said that as of November 2010, there were 80,656 Filipino HSWs with an estimated 9,000 Filipino domestics deployed in Saudi Arabia last year.

He said officials from the DFA and the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) were meeting to come out with a “unified position” on how to reply to the note verbale.

“We can already sense that there is a certain degree of slowdown in the deployment of HSWs but as a matter of policy, we are still processing this,” Cao said.

A labor official, who requested anonymity, said the Saudi ban might have been caused by the need for DFA certification on rights protection.

Under the new Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos Act, OFWs can be sent only to countries where their rights are protected.

The DFA is tasked to certify which countries meet this criteria. This certification will then have to be approved by the POEA governing board.

Cao said the DFA had issued a certification for Saudi Arabia but he declined to say if this included domestic helpers, adding only that POEA was asking for “further clarification” from the DFA.

Recruitment industry consultant Emmanuel Geslani said the certification issue was one of the reasons behind the Saudi ban.

The latest POEA Memo (daw)

Check the memo, folks.

Whose signature is it?

Isn’t there a new POEA Administrator already since Nov 2010?

Blacklist abusive employers, not runaway Pinoys in KSA – group

JOSEPH HOLANDES UBALDE, GMANews.TV
06/24/2009 | 08:45 PM

MANILA, Philippines – Instead of blacklisting runaway overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), abusive employers in Saudi Arabia should be barred under the new employment policy there, a migrants’ advocacy group said.

In a letter to Philippine officials in Saudi Arabia, Migrante’s Middle East chapter said the new policy puts the blame wrongly on foreign workers instead of employers who are subjecting these workers to various forms of maltreatment and labor malpractices.

“It should be erring and abusive employers that need to be blacklisted in hiring our workers, not the other way around,” said Migrante regional coordinator John Leonard Monterona.

Based on Migrante Saudi Arabia’s records, there were 1,793 cases of OFWs requesting repatriation as of December 31, 2008. Of the total, 566 ran away from their employers, while 1,019 were in various “distress” situations.

“We believe running away from abusive employers is the only way out for our distressed OFWs to save their lives. They should not be punished as they are the victims here,” Monterona added.

A GMANews.TV source in Saudi Arabia explained that under the new policy, all entering expatriates will be scanned for fingerprints for the kingdom’s database. Employers could no longer ask immigration officials to take a foreign employee’s name out of the blacklist. The SR2,000 fine for blacklist removal is also not applicable.

Deportees are required to take a Saudi Arabian Airlines flight out of the country, “”but the deportee will surely be delayed in his return because of the long process and difficulty in booking a (Saudia) flight,” said the source, who has assisted many workers in the Middle East in leaving abusive employers.

Welfare Officer Romualdo Exmundo of the Philippine Consulate General in Jeddah said some runaway OFWs have even left the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration shelter at the consulate in Jeddah to join other expatriates who are staying under an overpass in Khandara District, in the hope that immigration police would arrest and deport them.

The other runaway workers are from India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Indonesia.

But the GMANews.TV source said trooping to the Al Khandara bridge can only expedite the deportation of runaway maids, and not males or skilled workers.

Police records would have to be checked first for runaway men and skilled workers before they get deported. They also need their employer’s go-signal before they are allowed to leave the country, the source warned. – GMANews.TV

http://www.gmanews.tv/story/165758/Blacklist-abusive-employers-not-runaway-Pinoys-in-KSA–group