Women who end up as slaves, sex objects

A Filipino maid in Saudi Arabia ran away from the household where she was employed after she was raped by her employer, a policeman.

Another Filipino woman, who had earlier complained of dizziness, was brought by her employer to the police station for refusing to work. Policemen at the station took turns in raping her.

The second rape victim mentioned above, whose repatriation I was able to work out through the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (Owwa), has gone mad and is now confined at the National Mental Hospital.

My staff and I at “Isumbong mo kay Tulfo” public service program on Radyo Inquirer 990 AM are still working on the return of the domestic worker mentioned in the beginning of my column.

The two cases are just one of many cases of maltreatment of Filipino women employed as domestic help in Arab countries that my public service show has handled and continues to handle.

I don’t know why our government keeps sending domestics to these countries when it knows very well that they will be maltreated there.

The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration begged—practically on bended knees—that Saudi Arabia lift its ban on the hiring of domestics.

@#$%^&! Don’t we have any sense of self-respect at all?

We not only sell our women, as in the case of some    entertainers who go to Japan who end up as prostitutes.

We push them to become slaves in Arab countries.

Many of them are raped by their employers, and the newspapers and other media outlets are full of stories of their plight.

Why do we entrust our women to these employers, most of whom practice kinky sex or similar perversions?

* * *

More than 10 years ago, I wrote something similar to what I said above about one such male and his sexual preferences.

The chief of mission of this Middle East country at the time—I forgot the guy’s name already—asked his secretary, a Filipino woman, to “invite” me to his office.

I told the secretary I would not want to go to the  diplomat’s office as I did not consider it  neutral ground.

But I took pity on the secretary who said that if I would not be able to go, she would be scolded.

So I did.

After the usual amenities, the ambassador went straight to the point and asked me why I wrote the way I did about his countrymen.

I looked at him straight in the eye and said, “Because it’s (expletive deleted) true.”

I then stood up and left.