“Please help me and get me out of here before I get killed or I kill someone.”
This was the message sent online by a 26-year old overseas Filipino worker (OFW) in Dammam, Saudi Arabia to her mother in the Philippines, as she fears for her life under the hands her allegedly abusive employers.
Her mother, who resides in the town of Bambang, in Nueva Vizcaya province, told the Philippine Daily Inquirer that the female overseas worker (unnamed for her protection) is asking the Philippine government to rescue her.
The mother said that in a recent telephone conversation, her OFW daughter claimed that her employers seized her passport and identification card as a legal overseas worker and locked her up for two weeks.
The woman also stated that the male employer had repeatedly entered her room naked. She added that some male friends of her employer attempted to break into her room. They only stopped when her lady employer showed up.
The OFW in distress started working in Dammam, the capital of the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia and the country’s sixth largest city, August last year. Just more than a month later, she requested her local recruitment agency to transfer her to another employer after she reported several attempted break-ins. However, she remained in dire straits with her second employer as unidentified men living in the same house also tried to penetrate her room, according to her mother.
When she reported to her agency about her troubles with her present employer, the OFW was even accused of making up stories. Instead of helping her, the recruitment agency told her that she has to pay 28,000 rials (approximately P384,000) to her current employer.
The Overseas Worker Welfare Administration said that its Dammam office had been notified about the case.
