Recruit agencies nix psychiatric test for departing domestic helpers

Local job recruiters yesterday expressed opposition to the government’s plan to impose a mandatory psychiatric test for departing Filipino domestic helpers.

The Federated Association of Manpower Exporters Inc. (FAME) said that with the mandatory psychiatric test, more Filipino household workers would opt to leave the country illegally.

“Most household workers would rather leave illegally, just to avoid this new restrictive requirement,” FAME president Eduardo Mahiya said in a statement.

Mahiya said thousands of Filipino housemaids left the country illegally when the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) enforced stricter policy on the hiring of domestic helpers.

The POEA had previously required foreign employers to pay the Filipino housemaids a minimum salary of $400.

“Thousands of household workers have left as undocumented workers and hundreds of them continue to leave daily sneak out of the country because they refuse to subject themselves to the requirement imposed two years ago. And here come this psychiatric test,” Mahiya said.

The Department of Foreign Affairs is reportedly set to require Filipinos applying to work as domestic helpers abroad to undergo psychiatric test starting Sept. 1.

DFA is enforcing the new policy apparently to curb the rising number of welfare cases, mostly involving Filipino household workers.

A number of Filipino household workers abroad were charged of killing their employers or the children of their employers in the past. Most of them were diagnosed to be suffering from mental disorder when they committed the crime.

FAME also sought the government’s assistance to stop the embassy of Saudi Arabia from implementing the proposed “unified contract” requiring Filipino placement agencies to enter into a partnership with Saudi recruiters before the Saudi embassy in Manila can process the visa applications of OFWs.

 “The policy is detrimental to the local recruitment industry and serves as a stumbling block to the entry of Filipino workers to Saudi Arabia,” Mahiya said.

Congress is currently conducting public hearings on the unified contract in Saudi Arabia and other concerns affecting the deployment of Filipino workers abroad.

Mahiya expressed hope that with the help of Congress, the DFA would reconsider their plans to impose the  mandatory psychiatric test and also persuade the Saudi embassy from enforcing the unified contract scheme.