Deployment ban eyed for maids in 3 Mideast countries

MANILA, Philippines – The recruitment industry is bracing for the impact of a deployment ban on Filipino domestic workers to three Middle East countries, saying such would slash by half the numbers of people deployed and hurt their bottomline.

A source from the recruitment industry said the Governing Board of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) has already approved a resolution banning the deployment of household workers to Kuwait, Qatar and United Arab Emirates (UEA).

The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) chief has denied such a resolution has already been adopted, but an industry source said the numbers of household service workers (HSWs) are expected to decrease by 50 percent once this policy takes effect.

The POEA has in recent months deferred deploying HSWs to the three mentioned countries because they failed to meet the requirements of Republic Act 10022.

Section 3 of the amended Migrant Workers Act states that the Philippine government will only allow deployment if the host country “has existing labor and social laws protecting the rights of workers; is a signatory to and or a ratifier of multilateral conventions, declarations or resolutions relating to the protection of workers; and has concluded a bilateral agreement or arrangement with the government on the protection of the rights of OFWs”

“According to reliable sources within the recruitment industry the POEA Board in it is last meeting approved the recommendation of the DFA that the Middle East countries are not compliant with labor and international laws and thus deploying domestic under Sec. 3 of R.A.10022 would be in violation of the said provision,” said the source, who sought anonymity for lack of authority to speak on the matter.

Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz, who is also the POEA board chairperson, confirmed that DFA indeed recommended deployment to the three countries in order not to be in breach of the Migrant Workers Act.

“Based on the DFA certification, [that is their] recommendation using RA 10022 as basis,” the labor chief said in a phone interview.

However, Baldoz stressed that she is not aware that the POEA Governing Board has already adopted the said resolution.

“We have to wait. I don’t know that any decision has been made by the POEA Board adopting the recommendation. But once a resolution is adopted, that (HSW deployment ban) would be the effect,” she said.

Records show that in 2010, the three countries accounted for 46 percent or 44,675 of the 96,583 HSWs.

Hong Kong has the most number of HSWs, followed by Kuwait with 21,554; UAE with 13,184; and Qatar with 9,937 household workers. –InterAksyon.com