The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) has suspended the deployment of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) to Kuwait under Administrative Order 25, series of 2018, signed on Friday, January 19, 2018.
Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III ordered the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) to discontinue processing overseas employment certificates (OECs) of aspiring OFWs following the death of the seven Filipinos in the said country.
“The order, issued late afternoon, takes effect immediately,” the DOLE said in a statement.
It can be recalled that President Rodrigo Duterte mulled the possibility of a deployment ban on Kuwait-bound workers during the launching of Overseas Filipino Bank on Thursday, January 18, 2018.
Aside from the death of Filipino workers in the Arab country, the President also cited reported abuses of OFWs, particularly reports of sexual abuses with Filipino household service workers as reasons to ban deployment.
