A lawmaker wants the governemnt to step up its actions on the recent abuses to Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) in Kuwait.
Pangasinan 3rd district Representative Rose Marie Arenas said that Filipinos in Kuwait face an ‘uncertain’ future.
“I condemn, in the strongest possible terms, the unabated series of barbaric abuses and senseless killings of our (OFWs) in Kuwait, which we have silently, cowardly and unconscionably taken for granted for more than two decades,” Arenas said in a speech, this was right after the death of Connie Dayag from the hands of her employers.
With new cases of abuses including the alleged rape of a Pinay domestic worker at Kuwait airport premises, Arenas is now backing a total deployment ban to Kuwait.
“Despite the significant contributions of our OFWs over the years, there is still no single agency in the government high enough to be on a department level that attends to their needs,” Arenas told the Philippine Star.
Arenas said that what is happening to OFWs un Kuwait should be treated as ‘national emergency’.
The Foreign Affais Department said that 47 OFW deaths were recorded in Kuwait in 2013.
Data from OWWA show that 196 have died in Kuwait due to physical abuse.
