Villar: Jordan deal fixes minimum OFW age at 30

Senate President Manuel Villar Jr. hailed yesterday the drafting of an agreement between Philippine embassy officials and the Jordanian government to end the abuse of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) in Jordan.

Though the agreement has yet to be finalized, Villar said it fixes the minimum age requirement of home service workers (HSW) to 30 years old and introduces a system of blacklisting Jordanian recruiters and employers who have a record of maltreatment.

“Fixing the age requirement is important as many of the runaways who sought refuge in our Amman embassy are underage. There are 13-year-olds who easily passed as 24-year-olds,” Villar said in a statement.

He said the labor center in Jordan is housing 116 OFWs who left their employers because of maltreatment. Of the number, only 12 are documented. 

Villar accompanied home 23 OFWs and a seven-month-old baby from Jordan yesterday. He shouldered the airfares and overstaying fees of the distressed workers, which reached nearly P.5 million.

Majority of the repatriated OFWs are women who worked as domestic helpers, and many of them are underaged and from Mindanao. They left their Jordanian employers due to maltreatment, physical abuse, and non-payment of wages.   – Christina Mendez, Rudy Santos