The Philippine Embassy in Kuwait denied Saturday reports stating overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) who were rescued from their employers are sent to social events to work.
Philippine Ambassador to the Gulf state Renato Pedro Villa called the accusations “malicious” and that OFWs who are waiting to be repatriated to the Philippines are not allowed to go outdoors or to work for money.
The allegations started when a tweet was posted online stating that the Embassy is conniving with an advocacy group to encourage OFWs to escape from their recruiters and head to the Philippine Embassy. The Embassy then “smuggles” the OFWs to work in weddings, concerts, and other social events.
The tweet, written in Arabic, included a photo of a Filipino community leader with a caption that read:
“This man of Filipino nationality works in the Ministry of Health and has an account on Facebook through which the smuggling of workers to the Philippine Embassy and operates them in concerts, weddings and events, so please ask the Ministry of Interior to follow up this account and ask to investigate.”
The Embassy is decided to press charges against the person who spread the malicious tweet.
“This is totally not true. In fact, I even spoke to the Director of the Office of Domestic Workers Affairs (ODWA) who also informed me about this malicious tweet being spread on the social media. We never let those who run to the shelter go out and work again. They are all staying in the shelter waiting for their repatriation and for the record the embassy doesn’t allow the wards to go out and work at a price of KD 600 as some unscrupulous individuals have been spreading,” said Villa.
‘We are requesting the Ministry’s guidance and advice as to the possible measures and actions that the Filipino community organizations can adopt and take against malicious and unfounded twitter and other cyber allegations and attacks.”
Villa also clarified that the role of advocacy groups only revolves around endorsement of abused OFWs to the Embassy which in turn initiates the rescue operations.
“All the cases referred to us by Filipino groups or individuals, we assign them to the case officers at the embassy who will coordinate with the Kuwaiti police authorities who in turn will help extract the distressed OFW from the abusive employer. We always seek the help of Kuwaiti authorities and those who are rescued will stay at the POLO-OWWA shelter till their repatriation,” stressed Villa.
The Filipino community leader in the photo Dr. Chie Umandap, founder and chairman of AKO OFW, has since denied the legitimacy of the tweet stating that they only document reports of abuse and endorse them to the Embassy. Umandap stressed that they never carry out rescue operations.
“I categorically deny what is written on that tweet. My group AKO OFW and I have never rescued distressed household service workers. What we do is document cases of maltreated HSWs who need help and we submit all these to the embassy for appropriate action. We don’t do the rescue. It’s the embassy with the help of the Kuwaiti police that helps in extracting abused HSWs,” he said.
On February 9, the Philippine government announced the total deployment ban of OFWs to Kuwait following the death of Joanna Demafelis whose body was found inside a freezer of an apartment in the Gulf state.
Since the imposition of the deployment ban, thousands of Filipino workers have repatriated to the Philippines.
