MANILA, Philippines—Help is on the way.
This was the assurance given by the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) Wednesday to 60 construction workers stranded in the Maldives after their employer failed to pay their wages five months after their arrival in the Indian Ocean archipelagic state.
OWWA Administrator Carmelita Dimzon told reporters she had called the Philippine Overseas Employment Agency to compel the workers’ recruiter to work for their repatriation and the settlement of their claims as soon as possible.
The government said it had a hard time tracking down the workers because the nearest Philippine embassy they could turn to for help was in Bangladesh, although the office does not have a welfare officer tasked to help distressed overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).
The Philippines only has an honorary consul in the Maldives, and the OFWs live on an island about 36 hours by boat from the Maldivian capital of Male. –Jerome Aning, Philippine Daily Inquirer
Invoke Article 33 of the ILO constitution
against the military junta in Myanmar
to carry out the 2021 ILO Commission of Inquiry recommendations
against serious violations of Forced Labour and Freedom of Association protocols.
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