PH wants to send more workers to Iraq

MANILA - The Philippine government is pursuing a new bilateral agreement with Iraq for the hiring of more Filipino workers in the Middle East country.

“We are negotiating with Iraq a new bilateral agreement so we could fully open the market for Filipino workers,” Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz said yesterday.

She said the Philippine government has already lifted the deployment ban to Iraq after the peace and order situation there improved, but the hiring of Filipino workers remains limited until this time as there are still “no go” zones in Iraq.
“We are also not deploying household service workers to Iraq at this time,” Baldoz added.

Iraqi government officials are trying to convince the Philippine government to allow the deployment throughout Iraq.
“They want the lifting of the restrictions so they want me to visit Iraq so I could personally assess the security situation, but I told them it’s not within my competence,” Baldoz explained.

She also said that it is the Department of Foreign Affairs that has the authority to assess the security situation in foreign countries and make the necessary recommendation whether to allow or stop the deployment of Filipino workers.
At the moment, Iraq is starting to allow operations of recruitment agencies.

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