While we acknowledge that POEA’s deployment ban to Micronesia might seem to prevent further abuse, Migrante sees that it may result in the increased vulnerability of Filipino workers to human trafficking and illegal recruitment like what happened to numerous domestic helpers during the deployment ban in Kuwait and the UAE. Abuses continue even after the ban was lifted.
POEA’s instant recommendation to affected workers that they may still apply for jobs in the UK, Saudi Arabia or Japan indicates the government’s unpreparedness to absorb even a small OFW community of 2,000 workers in our local labour market at a time when a greater crisis in the Middle East is already on-going.
As the main enforcer of the Duterte administration’s labour export program, POEA’s pursuit of extracting income from maltreated and unpaid OFWs from Micronesia by driving them away to other countries for deployment is truly lamentable.
