The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) announced Tuesday that an 8-member delegation of Kuwaiti officials will arrive in the Philippines to resume negotiations on protecting overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) in the Gulf state.
The Kuwaiti officials will visit the country to finalize proposed pact called “Agreement on Domestic Workers’ Recruitment, Employment, and Protection between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines and the Government of the State of Kuwait.”
DFA secretary Alan Peter Cayetano said that the meeting will happen on March 15 to 16.
“We are looking forward to the conclusion of this bilateral agreement that we hope will be a model document in terms of providing the necessary guarantees to ensure the safety and well-being of our household service workers in Kuwait,” Cayetano said.
Cayetano added that President Rodrigo Duterte wants to make sure that the pact, once finalized, will be followed.
“President Duterte wants this agreement to be different from the other agreements we signed with other countries by making sure that whatever is written there will translate into real, actionable measures that will protect our countrymen from exploitation and abuse,” Cayetano said.
The Foreign Affairs secretary also added that the team of Filipino officials that visited Kuwait were able to secure deals with the Kuwaiti government.
Among the deals secured to protect Filipino household service workers (HSWs) include a minimum monthly salary of KD120 (P20,700), 8 hours of rest per day, possession of their passports and mobile phones, and limiting their work to one household.
The negotiations between the two countries started when the Philippine government imposed deployment ban to the Gulf state after the body of OFW Joanna Demafelis was discovered stuffed inside a refrigerator in an abandoned apartment.
