UAE policy changes threaten further deployment of Pinoy domestics

Policy changes by the United Arab Emirates threatens the continued deployment of Filipino household service workers, or HSWs, to the UAE.

According to a Gulf News report, the UAE Interior Ministry had introduced a new standard contract for housemaids last June 1 to protect the interests of housemaids and employers.

Simultaneously, the UAE Labor Ministry issued a directive barring foreign embassies from verifying or ratifying contracts of domestic workers.

Also, embassies were told not to compel employers who want to sponsor housemaids “to sign any contract pledges by those embassies.”

The new policies affect the Philippine missions in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, as Philippine laws require the missions to verify housemaids’ contracts before deployment.

Labor Department Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz said the prohibition against contract verification by the UAE was “unfortunate.”

“In this instance, the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration… will stop the processing of HSWs contracts for the UAE, like what it did when Saudi Arabia unilaterally suspended contract verification for HSWs,” Baldoz said.

“I am concerned that without the requisite verification, HSWs who will travel to UAE will fall vulnerable to human trafficking, which we must avoid at all cost,” she said.

“Thus, I have also instructed the POEA to work closely with the Bureau of Immigration and the IACAT [Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking] to ensure that OFWs intending to work in the UAE as HSWs on modes of entry other than a regular work visa do not fall victim to human trafficking,” she explained.

Baldoz added that she had directed the POEA to advise licensed recruitment agencies to explore markets for household service workers other than the UAE.

“Business is dead,” Rodel Gabriel, a consultant at Al Sharq Al Aqsa Labour Supply, told Gulf News. “Some 75 percent of our deployments are Filipino maids. Because of the confusion over the conflicting policies, no new deployment can be made.”

Nevertheless, the UAE was willing to negotiate with the Philippines on the matter.

Baldoz herself was confident an agreement “similar to what has been concluded between the Philippines and Saudi Arabia, an agreement that is now in place and being implemented,” would be made.

According to the Khaleej Times, about 125,000 or 20.8 percent of 600,000 Filipinos in the UAE are domestic workers.

An average of 2,000 or 1,000 HSWs in either Abu Dhabi or Dubai flee from their employers every year. — Joel Locsin/DVM, GMA News