On Target: Stop sending our maids overseas

When will the sufferings of Filipino maids employed in Arab households ever stop?

When will their exploitation by local recruitment agencies, illegal recruiters and their foreign employers ever come to an end?

It seems the government doesn’t care about the plight of our “mga bagong bayani” (modern heroes or heroines).

Hundreds of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), mostly housemaids, are staying in the compounds of various Philippine embassies in the Middle East after they ran away from their employers after being maltreated.

Some of them have been in those embassies for a long time now waiting for their repatriation to the Philippines.

It’s not uncommon for us to hear of reports that some embassy personnel have impregnated female OFWs staying within the embassy compound.

There was even a report that a labor attaché sexually harassed several female OFWs, but the Department of Labor did not punish or reprimand the official concerned.

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Every day, scores of people come to my Isumbong Mo kay Tulfo office at  Citystate Center on 709 Shaw Blvd., Pasig City, to seek our help for the immediate repatriation of their OFW relatives.

Most of these distressed OFWs could not depend on the government to get them home, and have asked their relatives in the country to come to “Isumbong” with their complaints.

What we do at Isumbong is to knock at the doors of concerned government agencies—Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) or Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA)—for the return home of those hapless OFWs.

Many times, my all-female staff, whom I call “angels,” succeed in making them return home.

If we can’t get help from the DFA, POEA or OWWA, our last resort is OFW Family Club party-list Rep. Roy Señeres.

A former ambassador to several Middle East countries, Señeres has been responsible for the return home of many oppressed OFWs through the intercession of Isumbong.

In the 1990s, Seneres begged for the life of a Filipino housemaid, Sarah Balabagan, who was condemned to death for killing the father of her employer who raped her several times.

As you and I know, Balabagan became a celebrity when she returned home.

Most of the distressed OFWs who want to come home are domestic helpers who are  maltreated by their employers.

The most notorious employers to Filipino housemaids are those in Saudi Arabia. You can’t imagine how cruel they are.

I’ll give you a clear picture of the cruelty our maids have to endure at the hands of their Saudi employers.

One story goes that a Saudi police general and his wife whipped their two Filipino housemaids every day, slapped and kicked them around, made them stand naked under the sun for hours and blinded one of the maids on one eye if they committed minor mistakes like breaking a plate.

While they were being manhandled, their employers would spit at their faces and call them pigs because they’re Christians.

Isumbong asked the help of  OWWA to bring the two housemaids home.

From my experience at Isumbong, I would estimate that out of 10 Saudi employers, only one treats his or her housemaid like a human being.

Yet, the Department of Labor and Employment and POEA keep sending hundreds of housemaids to the Middle East every month.

Isn’t it high time we stopped sending our women to work as maids in Arab households?

Let’s stop the maltreatment of Filipino women by Arab employers.