PH to send fact-finding team to assess more than 200 welfare cases in Kuwait
MANILA, Philippines — The government will send a fact-finding team to Kuwait in order to assess welfare cases among distressed overseas Filipino workers (OFW), said the Department of Migrant Workers (DMW) on Saturday.
According to the DMW, out of the 268,000 OFWs in Kuwait, around 200 workers are still staying in government-run shelters.
“The task at hand is a directive from [Secretary Susan Ople] to send a fact-finding team to Kuwait to ascertain, take stock of the welfare cases there, and to find ways and means to address these welfare cases,” said DMW undersecretary Hans Cacdac in a press briefing.
Ople said that these OFWs have experienced a wide range of problems, which include physical maltreatment, sexual abuse, contract violation or substitution, illegal termination, human trafficking, and more.
“Titingnan din kung nagkaroon ng lapses on the part of the migrant workers office sa pagtugon sa panawagan sa welfare assistance among our OFWs,” said Ople.
(We will see if there were lapses on the part of the migrant workers office in addressing the calls for welfare assistance among our OFWs).
Social welfare attaché Bernard Bonina and other officials from the DMW are set to go to Kuwait within the following week, said Ople.
Cacdac said that three weeks ago, 421 OFWs previously asked for help and their office has been able to send the workers home in batches within the past month.
READ: 80 distressed OFWs from Kuwait repatriated
Their findings will serve as evidence that may “result in policy reforms” and “personnel changes,” said Ople.
This move from the DMW follows the killing of OFW Jullebee Ranara, whose body was found burnt in a Kuwaiti desert, prompting outrage from different sectors, as well as politicians.
