POEA blacklists Kuwaiti blogger

THE Philippine Overseas Employment Administration on Monday included in its blacklist Kuwait social media influencer and celebrity make- up artist Sondos al-Qattan for her derogatory remarks against Filipino workers.

Susan Ople, head of the Blas F. Ople Policy Center, urged the POEA to ban the blogger with 2.3 million Instagram followers and over 100,000 Twitter fans from hiring a Filipino domestic worker.

She said al Qattan should be included in the POEA’s blacklist of abusive and undesirable foreign employers.

“By her words, publicly uttered and shared through social media, her undesirability as a foreign employer, cannot be denied. She is not worthy to be even in the same room as our valiant and hardworking OFWs,” Ople said.

POEA Administrator Bernard Olalia agreed to Ople’s request.

“The bilateral labor agreement that the Philippines recently signed with Kuwait and the guidelines issued by the POEA very clearly states that the passport should be in the possession of the domestic worker and that she is entitled to a weekly day off. Kuwaiti employers who refuse to follow these provisions shall be immediately blacklisted,” Olalia said.

The Ople Center represents the OFW sector in the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking.

Olalia said the POEA has started to process contracts of domestic workers bound for Kuwait.

In her Instagram video clip, al-Qattan said: “For her (the maid) to take a day off every week, that’s four days a month. Those are the days that she’ll be out. And we don’t know what she’ll be doing on those days, with her passport on her. How can you have a servant at home who keeps their own passport with them?” (Translation based on a cnn. com news report).

In a report published by buzzfeednews.com, the Kuwaiti blogger was also quoted to have said: “Even worse is that they get a day off every single week! What’s left? Honestly, with this new contract, I just wouldn’t get a Filipino maid. She’d only work six days a week and get four days off a month.”

The Blas F. Ople Policy Center urged other countries to also include al- Qattan in their list of undesirable employers.