DOLE: Deployment ban on Kuwait lifted

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine ban on deployment of workers to Kuwait has been lifted, with the filing of charges against the suspects in the killing of a Filipina domestic worker in the Gulf state, Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III announced yesterday.

The lifting of the ban was based on Resolution No. 7 of the governing board of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration, Bello said. The labor chief chairs the POEA governing board.

“After due consultation with the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) and with the filing of appropriate charges against the perpetrators (in the killing) of OFW Jeanelyn Villavende, the governing board of the POEA unanimously approved the lifting of the remaining ban in Kuwait with respect to the deployment of household workers,” he said.

The POEA imposed a total deployment ban in Kuwait last Jan. 15 after reports came out of the sexual abuse and death of Villavende at the hands of her employers.

Last week, the POEA ordered the partial lifting of the ban for overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), except for newly hired and returning domestic OFWs, after the Kuwait and Philippine governments agreed on a template of “a harmonized employment contract” for Filipino domestic workers in the Gulf state.

Under the harmonized contract, workers are allowed to keep their passports and mobile phones. They are also entitled to a paid full day off per week and they must not work for more than 12 hours a day.

They should also be allowed to have no less than an hour break after five consecutive hours of work. Their employers, based on the contract, should allow them eight hours of consecutive night rest.

The contract prohibits employers from assigning domestic workers to areas outside Kuwait or to another employer without their written consent.

Data show some 250,000 documented OFWs in Kuwait, more than half of them domestic workers.