The Department of Labor and Employment still needs to repatriate nearly 1,000 Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) in Saudi Arabia, two days before the end of the kingdom’s amnesty program for undocumented workers on Thursday.
The Overseas Workers Welfare Administration and DOLE formed an augmentation team in April to facilitate the transport home of 6,000 Filipino repatriates after Riyadh declared a 90-day amnesty the for undocumented migrants.
“As of [last Friday], a total of 5,016 OFWs from Saudi Arabia have already arrived in the country. We welcomed more than a hundred last Saturday. All in all, we were able to repatriate more than 5,100 Filipino migrants,” BusinessMirror quoted OWWA Administrator Hans Leo Cacdac as saying.
Labor and Employment Secretary Silvestre Bello III previously said in interviews that most of the repatriates were victims of illegal recruiters.
Some OFWs also ran away from their employers after being abused or harmed.
Repatriated OFWs are entitled to receive a cash assistance of P5,000 and livelihood capital of P20,000 for OWWA members and P10,000 for non-OWWA members.
Photo Credits: Wikimedia, Courtesy of Mattun0211
