Villar sees .3 M Pinoys working as maids abroad

The number of Filipinos deployed this year as domestic helpers abroad is expected to breach the 300,000 mark before yearend, Sen. Cynthia Villar said yesterday.

She said records from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) showed that as of this year, nearly 300,000 Filipinos seeking to work for the first time as domestic helpers abroad have been deployed.

According to POEA data, the Philippines deployed 275,073 first-time domestic workers overseas since the start of the year, compared to 194,835 in 2015 and 183,101 in 2014.

“Why are we sending more domestic workers now than ever before? We should focus our attention more in offering women workers decent local jobs rather than facilitating their deployment to foreign households under slave-like conditions,” Villar said.

She cited the case of Joramie Garcia Torres, who was scalded with boiling oil and beaten up by her Malaysian employer. Torres was a grade school teacher before she went to work as a domestic worker in Malaysia.

She said the Departments of Foreign Affairs and Labor and Employment should come up with better measures to protect overseas Filipino workers, especially those working as domestic workers.

Villar said she intends to file a Senate resolution calling for an inquiry into the rising number of migrant domestic workers and instances of abuse and maltreatment concerning these workers on a per country basis.