Senator alarmed by reports on sexual abuse of Pinays in Kuwait

MANILA, Philippines - Senate president pro tempore Jinggoy Ejercito Estrada raised concern about the plight of Filipino women in Kuwait amid a report that another Filipina was gang-raped in the said country on the coast of the Persian Gulf.

The Arab Times earlier reported that three men abducted a Filipina and brought her to an abandoned area in Fahd Al-Ahmad, Ahmadi where the alleged perpetrators took turns in raping the woman.

“I will immediately call the attention of the Department of Labor and Employment to look into the matter," Estrada told GMANews.TV on Tuesday.

Estrada said he was also alarmed by the increasing reports on sexual abuse in the Middle East victimizing Filipinos.

Migrant worker groups earlier said that a growing number of Filipino women were being raped or abused in the Middle East where they endure "3D jobs," or those that are “demeaning, dirty and dangerous."

In May 2008, it was reported that a Kuwaiti soldier was charged with murdering and then raping Filipina maid Fatima Sagadan Maulana, whose remains were later found in Kabad desert southwest of Kuwait City, the country’s capital.

In November 2007 three Filipinas, one of them 17 years old, were gang-raped in separate incidents. All the victims were abducted in Kuwait City, according to the DFA.

In November 2003, the DFA said three Kuwaiti policemen were prosecuted and imprisoned for raping a Filipina domestic helper.

Sixty thousand of the estimated 73,000 Filipinos who work in Kuwait are women who are mostly employed as household servants earning less than $200 monthly. - MJ Ubalde, GMANews.TV

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