No need to suspend deployment of OFWs to Middle East over ‘kafala’ — DFA

Department of Foreign Affairs building. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) does not see the need for the Philippines to suspend “anytime in the future,” the deployment of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) to countries in the Middle East over the kafala (sponsorship) system.

DFA Undersecretary for Migrant Workers’ Affairs Sarah Lou Arriola on Friday said this is because countries in the Middle East are going towards the complete abolition or reform of the kafala system.

The kafala system requires migrant workers to have a sponsor in the country of employment so that they can get a visa and worker’s permit. This allows employers to control the employment and migration status of foreign workers.

“We don’t think it (deployment suspension) will be necessary anytime in the future because we can see that the countries in the Middle East are going towards the complete abolition or complete reform of the kafala system,” she said in a virtual press briefing.

“We just have to be more patient with the process, because it’s not easy. As we know this is like a change management of their whole labor system and I think that’s why it’s very important that we have to support them,” she added.

Arriola made the statement after Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III said the government may halt the deployment of Filipino workers to Middle Eastern countries that don’t want to abolish the kafala system.

Bello made the remark after President Rodrigo Duterte called for the complete abolition of the sponsorship system, slamming it as “unjust and exploitative.”

The kafala system has repeatedly caused rampant abuses of foreign workers with some Arab nations—Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates — announcing the abolition or reform of the system.

/MUF