MANILA – A senator called on the Labor and Foreign Affairs departments to provide Filipino workers affected by the Philippine-Kuwait diplomatic row all the help they need.
Along with the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration, they must “ensure that OFWs (overseas Filipino workers) affected by the permanent employment ban in Kuwait will not have to come home empty-handed,” said Nancy Binay.
President Rodrigo Duterte recently announced that the ban on the deployment of workers to Kuwait will be “permanent” and urged Filipinos already working in the gulf state to “come home.”
The government should offer returning OFWs livelihood aid, said Binay, chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Social Justice, Welfare and Rural Development.
She wanted to know if the government has set aside funding for the employment of the returning workers.
More than 260,000 Filipinos currently work in Kuwait.
“Nabanggit na ang paggugol ng pondo mula sa China upang maiuwi ang mga kababayan natin sa Kuwait,” said Binay.
“Ang tanong naman pagkatapos nito ay saan natin kukunin ang perang gugugulin ng gobyerno para sila ay suportahan pagdating nila dito sa bansa.”
Without government support, the repatriated OFWs will be “susceptible to efforts to smuggle them back into the Middle Eastern country,” the senator warned.
“We need to ensure that their needs are met and that they will soon find employment,” she added. “This is the only way we can protect them from unscrupulous individuals or groups that may prey on them.”/PN
