Gov’t urged to enhance protection for OFWs



Senator Cynthia Villar urged the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Department of Labor and Employment to boost welfare protection for overseas Filipino workers especially domestic workers abroad citing the case of OFW Joramie Garcia Torres who was scalded with boiling oil and beaten up by her Malaysian employer.
Villar urged the DFA to extend legal and humanitarian assistance to OFW Joramie Garcia Torres as she attends court hearings and pursues a criminal case against her employer in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
“We all should be proud and supportive of Joramie because she is intent on seeking justice under Malaysian law. While she cooperates with the Malaysian government, I hope that the DFA and DoLE can also assist her indigent family,” Sen. Villar said.
The senator noted that Torres was a grade school teacher prior to applying to work abroad as a domestic worker in Malaysia. The OFW is now under the care of the Malaysian government while charges against her Malaysian employer are pending in court. The Malaysian employer was arrested but was able to post bail.
“I hope that the P1billion in Assistance-to-Nationals Fund of the DFA can be used to better protect and help our OFWs especially hundreds of thousands of domestic workers living and working under vulnerable conditions worldwide,” the senator said.
  
Meanwhile, the senator expressed dismay over the unprecedented increase in the number of Filipinos being deployed overseas as domestic workers.
  
“Why are we sending more domestic workers now than ever before? Last year, the records of the POEA showed that we have almost breached the 300,000-mark in terms of newly hired migrant domestic workers. 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 stressed.
  
According to POEA data, the Philippines deployed 275,073 first-time domestic workers overseas, compared to 194,835 in 2015 and 183,101 in 2014.
  
“For the first semester of 2017, the POEA has processed the contracts of 124,969 first-time migrant domestic workers. This means we may be sending 300,00 new-hires as overseas domestic workers by the end of the year,” Villar said.

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