42 Pinoys leave for Saudi

WASHINGTON – Filipina Angela Guanzon was looking for a way to help her family and thought she won the lottery when she got a visa to the United States with the promise of a good job.

However, she was coerced to live and work in slave-like conditions for two years before she was rescued by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Guanzon, now a certified nurse’s assistant, said she was forced to work at a retirement home for the elderly in Los Angeles.

“I worked 18-hour days and had to sleep on the floor in the hallway,” she said. 

Guanzon said that when she arrived in the US her passport was confiscated.

She was one of two victims of human trafficking who testified before the US House Committee hearing on Monday.

The other was a local girl, Carissa Phelps, who ran away from home and dropped out of school at the age of 12. She was forced into sexual slavery in California.  

“With increasing globalization and transnational gang and criminal activity, it is hard to draw the line between domestic and international trafficking,” said Republican Ed Royce, chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

“Each year human trafficking victimizes millions around the world. Many are women and girls from our neighborhoods,” he said.

Last week, Royce introduced the Fraudulent Overseas Recruitment and Trafficking Elimination (FORTE) Act of 2013 that seeks to combat the growing problem of international human trafficking.  

Under the measure, overseas labor recruiters should provide detailed employment information to overseas workers to avoid being victims of sexual slavery once they enter the US.

It also requires the State Department and USAID to ensure that foreign assistance programs do not contribute to human trafficking and slavery.

Congress passed the Trafficking Victims Protection Act in 2000 and since then more than 130 countries have enacted anti-trafficking laws.

“Sadly though, the enactment of laws is not the same as enforcement. And without continued vigilance, progress is temporary,” Royce said.

Amid the Saudi Arabia government’s crackdown on illegal migrants in the oil-rich kingdom, 42 Filipino workers left for Saudi yesterday afternoon.

The workers left the Ninoy Aquino International Airport at 4 p.m. aboard Saudi Arabian Airlines.

They said that they are not afraid of the crackdown resulting from the Saudization policy, which seeks to prioritize the employment of Saudi nationals over migrants, because they are legitimate contract workers.

“We heard about the Saudization and that more than a thousand (Filipino workers) are facing deportation and some of them might be jailed. But we are not illegal and we went all the way to be legal contract workers,” one of the workers said.

Meanwhile, 13 more overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) are expected to arrive today from Saudi. They were repatriated with the help of the Villar Foundation of Sen. Cynthia Villar.

One of them is Diego Mag-atas Sr., who has worked in the kingdom for 30 years.

He suffered a rare spinal disease while working in Saudi. The disease hampered his physical movements that eventually led to his termination from work.

The Philippine consulate general in Jeddah helped him acquire an exit visa prior to the end of the amnesty period for illegal migrant workers last Nov. 3. – With Christina Mendez