Philippines lifts ban on sending domestic workers to Kuwait
Applications for new staff will begin next week
Kuwait City: Over a year since the Philippines imposed a ban on deploying new domestic workers to Kuwait, the Filipino labour attaché, Nasser Mustafa, issued a circular on Sunday announcing that the ban has been lifted.
The Philippine Overseas Workers Office (POLO) will begin issuing the disclosure license for the employment offices as of Monday. Then two days after, on Wednesday, they will be allowed to begin to accept requests for renewing job orders.
By next Sunday, April 25, the office will begin receiving applications for new domestic workers’ employment contracts.
After Indians, Filipinos make up the second largest number of domestic workers in Kuwait with around 150,000 in total as of June 2020.
Sexually abused
At the beginning of 2020, the Philippines temporarily halted the recruitment of domestic workers to Kuwait after a Filipino domestic worker, Jeanelyn Villavende, was sexually abused and killed by her employer.
Villavende, 26-years old, was killed on December 28, 2019 and according to the autopsy report conducted at Sabah hospital found that she died due to acute failure of the heart and respiration as a result of shock and multiple injuries to the vascular nervous system. In addition, an official Philippine autopsy found that she was sexually abused before her death.
Then on December 30, 2020, the criminal court of Kuwait sentenced a Kuwaiti woman to death for the killing of Villavende. Her husband was also convicted and was sentenced to four years for not reporting the crime and covering it up.