Duterte threatens Mideast work ban after maid ‘rapes’

MANILA: Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte yesterday threatened to ban hundreds of thousands of Filipinas from working as maids in the Middle East as he said domestic workers were being raped in Kuwait.

Over two million Filipinos, many of them maids, are employed in the region, helping to prop up the Philippine economy with billions of dollars in salary remittances to their families each year.

Last week, Duterte barred Filipinos from seeking work in Kuwait over reports of widespread abuse, exploitation and deaths, although the ban did not affect workers already in the Gulf state.

“One more incident about a woman, a Filipina worker being raped there, committing suicide, I’m going to stop – I’m going to ban” Filipinos working, he said.

“And I’m sorry to all the Filipinos there, they can all go home.”

“Let me be blunt about this because Kuwait has always been an ally. But please do something about it and for the other countries of the Middle East.”

A visibly angry Duterte was speaking shortly before boarding a flight for India to attend a regional summit.

“Can I ask you now to treat my countrymen as human beings with dignity?” he added.

Duterte said last week that four Filipinas had died in Kuwait over the past few months in apparent suicides. Kuwait embassy officials in Manila could not be contacted for comment.

Philippine Foreign Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano said separately that Duterte had reacted to a recent report on abuses in Kuwait.