Pinay in Bahrain whose passport was confiscated by employer gets justice



A Filipina cleaner and caterer assistant will finally get her passport back along with her backpay months after her employer unceremoniously cancelled her visa and held her passport hostage, according to Bahrain's DT News.
Jeny Agbulig will receive her documents seven months after her sponsor and employer cancelled her work visa unannounced on May 2, 2017, the report said.
Months prior to this, Agbulig was told to stop working and given three options for her release — pay her sponsor 300 Bahraini dollars for her passport, use her pending salaries to pay for her airline ticket, or continue working for 70 Bahraini dollar.
Agbulig was hired by her employer and received her work visa in August 2016.
From that month to March this year, she and her colleagues were reportedly subjected to more than 15-hour workdays, had no fixed working hours, and were not given salary slips nor copies of their offer letters or employment contracts.
Even when they complained, Agbulig said they were told that their visas would be automatically renewed once their contracts were finished and that no actions would be taken regarding their complaints.
It was after she asked for assistance from the Ministry of Labor of Bahrain that she found out that her signature was forged on the employment contract.

Agbulig was forced live with her friends to hide from her sponsor after she complained to the ministry and could not secure any work for being undocumented. —Rie Takumi/KBK, GMA New

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