The problem is not Kuwait but the slave trade
The president is getting it wrong. The problem is not Kuwait. Therearemorethan100,000FilipinoworkersandexpatsinKuwait who are earning well in honorable and dignified jobs. They are many OFWs who are working in the Kuwaiti government, being entrusted with functions that are highly sensitive and confidential. Many of our OFWs are working in hospitals as doctors and nurses, dentists and medical technologists, nursing attendants, radiologists, and X-ray technicians. There are educators teaching in international schools and managing educational institutions. Others are in hotels, restaurants and bars, shops, and offices. They are earning well and are facing no serious problem.
Many are factory workers and a good number are in the service industry, in beauty shops, dress shops, barber shops, and spas. There are even truck and taxi drivers and some in the maritime industry, manning the private yachts of the king and the members of the royal family. There are no serious complaints involving these workers. They earn well and are remitting thousands to our country regularly. And so, Kuwait is not the problem. The real problem is the modern slave trade, which is the notorious practice of sending maids to Kuwait and to any country, which is a virtual slave trade. The recruiters, both the Kuwaitbased agencies, and those that are operating here in the Philippines, have been making a lot of money from both the employers and the OFWs. But the maids are made to work for 17 to 20 hours a day under very harsh conditions.
Whether it is Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, Dubai, or Abu Dhabi, it is all the same. The atrocities and maltreatment, the abuses against our domestic helpers has been going on since the '60s, when the oil boom started in the Middle East. Unscrupulous and greedy recruiters and traffickers of women and minors have accumulated millions of dollars in this modern slave trade. This is the pernicious practice of sending domestic helpers to countries that do not have a culture and legal system that provide adequate protection for our women, the unabated deployment of vulnerable women to households where maids are very vulnerable under the control and domination of masters who think that they have already paid for them as virtual slaves.
The embassy officials cannot really barge into the private domains of their masters to save maids who are being held incommunicado. Their passports and cellphones are normally confiscated. They are not allowed to call home or to contact their family and relatives. Some of them are physically abused, sexually violated, and subjected to all forms of inhuman and cruel treatment. President Duterte is correct that their human dignity cannot be compromised. But we hasten to interject that such atrocities only affect the maids. The others are doing well. And so, the ban against all OFWs to Kuwait is an ill-advised, knee-jerk and impulsive decision. With due respect, if the president wants to help the maids, he should spare the others who have no problem.
What is poison to the goose may be sauce to the gander. I hope Secretary Bebot Bello can persuade Manong Digong when he is in a cooler mood. The president can ask Ambassador Rene Villa to report to him the real score on the ground.