Senator Joel Villanueva has urged the Department of Labor and Employment to prepare its contingency plan for the overseas Filipino workers who may be affected by the impending deployment ban to Kuwait.
President Rodrigo Duterte earlier threatened to withdraw all OFWs in Kuwait if another migrant Filipina worker dies from abuse in the Middle Eastern country.
The Labor department has already suspended the processing of overseas employment certificates of Kuwait-bound workers in light of the death of seven OFWs, all domestic workers.
“We support the President’s deployment ban to Kuwait but we believe that this move must be accompanied with review and implementation of strict regulation,” said Villanueva, chairperson of the Senate committee on labor, employment, and human resources development.
Villanueva said data from the Labor department showed there were 1,447 cases of maltreatment; 2,959 cases of contract violation; 227 sexual abuses; and 63 cases of rape involving OFWs from 2016 to 2017.
Duterte on Saturday said he will ask China to accept OFWs who will be displaced because of his decision to ban thousands of workers to Kuwait, amid concerns over reported exploitation and sexual abuse.
China, Duterte said, was “not really bad as the others” since Asians do not resort to such “barbaric form” of maltreatment.
“I will ask China to open its doors to us and I said to them that if you consider the Philippines, we would be glad to allow our workers to work here. All I ask is that don’t abuse them,” he said.
Duterte reiterated that foreign employers should treat OFWs decently, adding that the country is ready to suffer with the deployment ban even if it meant reduced income from remittances.
Latest Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas data show cash remittances from Kuwait from January to November last year amounted to $735 million (₱37.5 billion).