Senator JV Ejercito has called on the government to heed the sentiment of the Senate against deploying household workers in countries where their rights are violated and their welfare denied.
Ejercito made the statement recently after they adopted Senate Resolution No. 676, which expressed the sense of the Senate that the deployment of overseas Filipino household service workers to countries that do not afford migrants the same rights and work conditions as their nationals and allow withholding of Philippine Passport be totally banned.
“It’s like feeding them (Filipino household workers) to the dogs once they leave our country and this kind of deployment must end today. Our women will never be fully protected for as long as they are viewed upon as ‘properties’ by their employers and treated as aliens without rights,” the legislator said in a manifestation of support for the resolution.
This is the sense of the Senate: deployment of overseas Filipino household service workers to countries that do not afford migrants the same rights and work conditions as their nationals and allow withholding of Philippine Passport be totally banned.
The lawmaker also sought for a review, with the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) and the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), the Memorandum of Agreement for Filipino migrant workers in Kuwait, which is currently under negotiation.
“Let us not only review our labor policies with Kuwait. But more so with other countries in the Middle East like the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and other countries where human rights violations on Filipino workers have been monitored,” the senator from San Juan said.