Deployment of overseas Filipino workers to Kuwait is now at risk of being stopped again following the recent brutal death of another Filipino household service worker (HSW) there.
The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) said it is now eyeing the reimposition of the deployment ban if the Kuwaiti government fails to ensure the protection of overseas Filipino workers (OFW) in its territory.
“It is an option,” Labor and Employment Secretary Silvestre H. Bello III said in a SMS.
This was confirmed by Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) Administrator Bernard P. Olalia, who said it will be among the issues they will tackle in their next governing board (GB) meeting.
“We have regular GB meetings in the POEA and we can discuss any issue including the ban,” Olalia said in a SMS.
Last Thursday, DOLE reported the death of Constancia Lago Dayag in a hospital after suffering severe wounds allegedly caused by her employer in Kuwait.
Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) Hans J. Cacdac said they already visited the family of Dayag in Agadanan, Isabela to provide them assistance.
“We will provide death and burial benefits, as well as livelihood and scholarship support. One of her children is still studying in school,” Cacdac said in a SMS.
Bello condemned the gruesome fate of Dayag, which he said he will discuss with the Kuwaiti government since it is a seeming violation of its Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed last year for the protection of Filipino HSWs.
In 2018, the government stopped the deployment of OFWs to Kuwait after the remains of the Filipino HSW Joanna Demafelis was recovered from a freezer of her employer’s home in Kuwait.
The incident prompted President Rodrigo R. Duterte to order the issuance of deployment ban to Kuwait.
The deployment restriction was only lifted after the arrest of Demafelis’ employers and the signing of the Philippine-Kuwait MOU.