A pro-OFW group on Tuesday, May 15, said the Philippine government should draft ethical guidelines for the recruitment of Filipino workers in line with the signing of the labor deal with Kuwait earlier this week.
Susan Ople, president of the Blas F. Ople Policy Center, said recruitment of OFWs should be rights-based.
“This is the chance for both countries to start fresh, and blaze the trail towards a rights-based approach to the recruitment and employment of Filipino migrant workers,” she said.
Ople explained that recruiters should ensure that deployed OFWs, particularly household service workers (HSWs), are well-trained and properly-oriented to “avoid instances where the workers deployed cannot even read or write, much less operate a washing machine”.
Recruiters are also not allowed to impose hidden charges on deployed OFWs. The law also underscores recruiters’ responsibility to continuously monitor the condition of the deployed workers overseas.
Ople added that the government should also be more critical of hunting down illegal recruiters who are common purveyors of unethical recruitment.
“Even with a bilateral labor agreement in place, no one can guarantee the safety and welfare of our workers unless local recruitment agencies as well as their foreign counterparts are able to level up their commitment to ethical recruitment,” Ople said.
Ople also suggested a review of performance of licensed recruitment agencies in the country and the creation of a joint inter-agency task force that will monitor the condition of OFWs in the Middle East.
“While we expect Kuwait to live up to its commitments, we also must walk the talk and show that we are capable of instituting reforms within our own backyard,” she said.
