DFA team in Kuwait to help distressed OFWs

A-Department of Foreign Affairs augmentation team is in Kuwait to assist the Philippine Embassy in repatriating undocumented Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) who accepted the amnesty offer of the Kuwait government.

So far, the Philippine government has sent home 4,175 undocumented OFWs. There are still 563 awaiting repatriation.

DFA said OFWs who want to apply for amnesty may do so at the Philippine Embassy, which is still accepting applications despite the April 12 deadline it had set.

More Philippine government officials will be arriving in Kuwait by next week to work on the repatriation of undocumented Filipino workers before the Kuwaiti amnesty ends on April 22 .

The DFA team will also help the Philippine Overseas Labor Office (POLO) bring home more than a thousand distressed Filipino household service workers staying at POLO-OWWA shelters in Al Siddique and Surra who were victims of sexual, verbal or physical abuse, non-payment of salaries, lack of food and overwork.

Some of the team’s members have gone on rescue missions to help extract distressed household service workers from the house of their employers.

DFA said that President Duterte will visit Kuwait once the Philippines and Kuwait are all set to sign the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on the Protection and Deployment of Filipino Household Service Workers (HSWs) to Kuwait.

The Philippine side is to meet its Kuwaiti counterpart for the second time to finalize the unified contract for Filipino HSWs.