Bello supports Senate reso on total deployment ban to countries that don’t respect OFWs


Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III has expressed his support to the Senate proposal to ban the deployment of Filipino domestic workers to countries that failed to assure their labor rights and good working conditions.
"It should be. If there is no Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) between our country and the accepting countries, then it is foolhardy to deploy our overseas workers because they will not be protected," said Bello on Tuesday.
It was sponsored on the floor by Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III. Crossing party lines, all the senators present agreed to be co-authors.
In his sponsorship speech, Pimentel cited the case of Irma Avila Edloy, an abused Filipino worker who died in a hospital in Saudi Arabia in August 2016, and Joanna Demafelis, whose body was discovered in a freezer in Kuwait last February.
The killing of Demafelis prompted President Rodrigo Duterte to stop the deployment of first-time OFWs to Kuwait.
Meanwhile, Bello reiterated that it is possible that the deployment ban in Kuwait may be lifted but only for skilled workers.
"I'm not inclined yet to recommend the lifting with respect to HSWs (household service workers). I may recommend the lifting with respect to our skilled workers since the incidents of abuse and maltreatment are very minimal," he said. —KBK, GMA News

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