Manila: Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is considering banning workers from being sent to Kuwait claiming there was rising sexual abuse, although he did not mention any specific case.
Duterte said he had discussed the issue with his foreign minister and wanted to raise it with the Kuwait government.
“My advice is we talk to them, state the truth and just tell them that it’s not acceptable anymore,” he said on Thursday at the launch of a new bank catering for Filipinos abroad.
“Either we impose a total ban or we have the correction,” he said.
The Kuwait foreign ministry could not be reached for comment and its embassy in Manila did not respond immediately to questions sent by Reuters about Duterte’s remarks.
There are more than 250,000 Filipinos in Kuwait, based on the Philippine foreign ministry’s estimate, most of them working as domestic helpers.
There are also large numbers of Filipinos working in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
More than 2.3 million Filipinos are documented as working abroad, from among some 8 million who live overseas.
Collectively they remit more than $2 billion of their income back to the Philippines every month, money that fuels robust consumer spending in one of the world’s fastest-growing economies.
“I do not want a quarrel with Kuwait,” Duterte said.
“I respect their leaders, but they have to do something about this because many of the women commit suicide,” he said.
