Philippines Embassy assures to overcome obstacles of domestic workers hiring from Philippines

As per the list issued by the General Directorate of Residency Affairs of the Ministry of Interior the new countries whose domestic workers have been banned included, in addition to domestic workers from Ivory Coast and Madagascar, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria and Togo. Females are from Senegal, Malawi, Chad, Sierra Leone, Niger, Tanzania, Gambia, Ghana, Zimbabwe, Madagascar, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Burundi. As for the Asian countries, the ban included only Indonesia and Bhutan reports Al Qabas.

Based on the circular from the Foreign Ministry, as per the new ban list which was issued last July and canceled all the lists that preceded it, two countries, namely Eritrea and Liberia, were removed from the ban list.

Meanwhile the President of the Union of Domestic Workers Offices Khaled Aldakhanan that the Union held a meeting with the Philippine Ambassador and the Labor Attaché, where they discussed the latest developments and briefed on the most important issues related to the recruitment of Filipino domestic workers to the country.

Sources informed that the union has received assurance from the Philippine ambassador to overcome all the obstacles faced in recruitment process and in coming days will result in more effective steps, which benefit both the Kuwaiti and Philippine sides.

He pointed out that a Philippine delegation will visit Kuwait in January to sign the joint contract on domestic workers, noting that the Union will make other positive moves on domestic workers; most notably a visit to Indonesia and the Philippines at the end of December; to achieve an expansion in recruitment and overcome obstacles.

Sources also informed that the union's quest to open different labor markets to export domestic workers to the country by visiting the embassies of those countries in Kuwait, the latest of which was the Nigerian embassy. Concluding memorandums of understanding with some countries on employment, while welcoming the export of domestic workers to the country. Sources said that the Union seeks, through communication with embassies, to open new recruitment outlets to fill the shortage in the domestic labor market, as well as the Union's demands to the concerned authorities, especially the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to communicate with several countries, including Indonesia, Ethiopia and Nepal, to sign joint work agreements.

Depriving Kuwaiti recruitment agencies of the right of re-employment prompted many foreign offices to stop exporting their workers to Kuwait because they feared the large number of workers returning to their country during the probation period without realistic reasons, which deprives the worker of his right to get a chance to work again in Kuwait.

Sources stated that re-employment is an inherent right, deprived of the owners of domestic labor offices since the implementation of Law No. 68 of 2015. He called on the concerned authorities to alleviate the suffering of the offices and give them the right to re-operate again, in accordance with the principle of equal opportunities with the government company currently alone with this right exclusively. He called on the concerned authorities to work on a list of the names of offices violated and fake unlicensed in the media; in order to warn citizens and residents against dealing with them.