Noy urged to order OFW mass evacuation in Saudi

MANILA, Philippines - A migrant workers' rights group on Wednesday called on President Benigno Aquino III to order a mass repatriation of stranded and overstaying overseas Filipino workers in Saudi Arabia.

Migrante-Middle East made the call after the Saudi government intensified its crackdown on illegal migrants.

"For more than a week now, Saudi authorities have been raiding illegal and overstaying migrants’ at their houses and accommodations and even at work places and establishment," John Monterona, the group's regional coordinator, said.

Monterona said Saudi authorities have been rounding up illegal and overstaying migrant workers since early last week, in its bid to force private firms to comply with the "Saudization" or locally known as Nitaqat, which means localization of labor, and clean the Kingdom from overstaying and illegal migrant workers.

"Per our monitoring, there were a considerable numbers of undocumented migrants including OFWs, about 40 of them mostly women OFWs were nabbed during series of raids Kingdom-wide since last week and still ongoing," Monterona added.

Based on group's figures, there are 38,000 to 42,000 stranded and undocumented OFWs in the entire Saudi Arabia.

Monterona said since last quarter of 2012, there were already more than 7,000 stranded and overstaying OFWs have wanted to avail of repatriation program of the Philippine consulate in Jeddah.

However, these OFWs were told that there is no repatriation program and it has been stopped, Monterona said.

"Their numbers have increased to around 12,000 even before the Saudi crackdown that started last week, citing information from Philippine officials in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia," he added.