The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) has imposed a deployment ban on household service workers to Saudi Arabia.
Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello said that the government needs to review the policies for newly hired domestic workers after reports of abuses committed by a retired Saudi general.
“They are using the weak contract of employment to fool our [overseas Filipino workers]. This one general…he had 8 workers when he was not an employer. He made up fake employers, fake addresses and he got 8 OFWs. These workers were molested, abused and not paid,” Bello told ABS CBN News.
The labor chief said that the temporary suspension in deployment does not cover balik-manggagawa or those with existing contracts.
Bello said that they are still pushing for Saudi Arabia to pay the unpaid claims of over 9,000 OFWs.
DOLE is hoping that the payment of over P4 billion will be given this December.
