Distressed OFW in Saudi Arabia pleads for help

TUGUEGARAO CITY—A 26-year-old overseas Filipino worker (OFW) in Dammam, the capital of Saudi Arabia’s eastern province, has asked to be rescued, fearing more abuses allegedly by her employer’s family.

In a telephone call to her mother at Bambang town in Nueva Vizcaya province, the woman, whose name was withheld for her protection, asked the government to intervene, claiming her employers had locked her up in their house for the past two weeks.

“Please help me and get me out of here before I get killed or I kill someone,” she said in a message she sent online.

She said unidentified men—
her employer’s friends and visitors—had tried to break into her room, stopping only when her lady employer showed up.

The male employer had repeatedly entered her room naked while rubbing his genitals, she said.

The migrant worker’s mother said her daughter started working as a maid in Saudi Arabia in August last year.

But after just over a month, she asked her local recruitment agency to refer her to another employer following a number of alleged attempted break-ins, the mother said.

Her situation did not improve with her second employer as some men living in the same house also tried to enter her room.

When she protested and reported the attempted break-ins to her agency, she said she was accused of making up stories.

She was told that she could not leave unless she paid 28,000 rials (about P384,000) to her employer.

According to her, her employer seized her passport and her identification card (as documented worker), and had locked her up in her room.

The Overseas Workers Welfare Administration said its post in Dammam had been alerted. —MELVIN GASCON