OFWs in Dubai (pinoy-ofw.com photo)
Manila should ask Dubai to crack down on foreign placement agencies operating in the United Arab Emirates if it wants to stop the flow of Filipino domestic helpers going to strife-torn Syria, a migration expert said Thursday.
Migration analyst Emmanuel Geslani said foreign placement agencies in Dubai were the ones involved in the trafficking of Filipino domestic helpers to Syria, Lebanon and Jordan—countries where Manila has banned the deployment of household service workers.
“The trafficking of Filipina maids to Syria and Lebanon continues unabated in the city of Dubai even as the Philippine government is clamping down on illegal recruiters who defy the deployment ban to Syria by using the backdoor exits in Mindanao,” Geslani said in a statement.
“Dubai is being used by illegal and legal recruiters as the transit point of Filipinos arriving from Manila using either tourist visas or POEA (Philippine Overseas Employment Administration) issued documents before they are shipped by these foreign placements agencies to Syria, Lebanon or Jordan,” he added.
On Wednesday, 31 overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) who availed of the government’s mandatory repatriation program arrived in Manila on board Emirates flight EK 332, according to the Manila International Airport Authority.
This brings to 1,702 the total number of Filipinos who have been sent home since crisis alert level 4 was raised over Syria in December 2011.
Last Tuesday, some 28 repatriates, including a 12-year-old boy, also came home from Syria.
The boy, who was born in Syria to two OFWs, sought the Embassy’s assistance so he could continue his studies in the Philippines—away from the current turmoil in the Arab country, the Department of Foreign Affairs said earlier.