The Department of Migrant Workers (DMW) has vowed to do more to ensure the safety of Filipino domestic workers abroad.
“Safeguarding the rights and welfare of our migrant workers is at the heart of the DMW’s programs, services, and agreements. We will always strive to do our best amid so many challenges in the world we live in,” Migrant Workers Secretary Susan Ople said in a statement on Thursday.
Ople added that the DMW will be guided by the objectives contained in the United Nations (UN) Global Compact on Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration in negotiating bilateral labor agreements with other countries.
Here’s the list of the initiatives DMW is planning to implement to protect OFWS:
• Performance review and assessment of licensed recruitment agencies and their foreign counterparts based on deployment numbers and the capacity to monitor and act on welfare cases;
• Issuance of country-specific employment contracts taking into account prevailing labor laws and migration policies as well as contents of bilateral labor agreements, if any, with labor-destination countries;
• Strict department guidelines to ensure that only qualified and fully trained domestic workers are deployed abroad;
• Mandatory viewing by all new employers of a video on OFW rights and welfare, before any employment contracts are signed;
• Creation of a White list of recruitment agencies and foreign recruitment agencies that have shown consistent and strict adherence to fair and ethical recruitment standards and principles, to guide OFWs and foreign employers;
• Review and crafting of new verification guidelines by POLO to address gaps in the system and strengthen protection mechanisms for OFWs.
Ople added that they will also start publishing the identities of foreign employers and recruitment agencies, both local and foreign, that have been blacklisted due to recruitment and labor violations, including severe exploitation and abuse of OFWs.
Ople said one specific challenge is the trafficking of migrant workers from a second origin country to the next.
The DMW head noted that OFWs in other countries are being illegally recruited by Filipinos and other foreign agents to work in a third country, such as Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and even countries in Europe, namely, Poland, Hungary, and Romania.
“We also appeal to our kababayans to be more discerning about such bogus offers, and to report illegal recruiters and human traffickers to the DMW,” Ople said.
