Who shall care for battered Filipino women?

KUWAIT — There are scores of former OFWs who left their employment and lived with their foreign boyfriends. They were impregnated, bore illigitimate children, were battered, abused and maltreated when they lose their beauty. Now, they run away to the Labor Attaché.

The government does not give the Labor Attaché any budget for this kind of people. The budget is only for distressed OFWs who run away from their employers.

Today, there are more than ten of these women in the FWRC (Filipino Workers Resource Center) in Kuwait. Their infants, toddlers and young kids do live with them in a small room together with the sick, the injured and the traumatized women. This is not the proper place for children. They have a right to live in a better environment.

People do tell me to refuse this kind of people. But if you are the Labor Attaché, do you have the heart to refuse shelter to these Filipinos? Do you have the courage to tell them to go to the desert and die under the scorching sun? Or ask them to beg, steal or borrow for food for them and for the children? And if not, what then shall you do in the midst of all these?

No. I did not refuse them. On the contrary, I nurtured them. My wife put up a school where volunteer teachers teach them the basic of writing, reading and good manners. I sent a Memo to Head Office some months ago asking for help. I am still waiting for an answer. Am I doing the right thing? You be the judge.

Conflict of laws

Under the laws of the host government, women are not allowed to bring their children (of Arab fathers) out of their homes and the Embassies are supposedly forbidden from taking in Filipino women who bring such children.

The Ambassador and I were summoned to the Ministry of the Foreign Affairs of the host government and were told bluntly that withholding the son of a national is a violation of the 1961 Vienna Convention and that the premises of the Embassy should not be used in any manner incompatible with such Conventions.

I believe however that the rights of human beings take precedence over all conventions. The dignity of this people command the primordial concern of both the labor-sending country and the host government.

What we need is a bilateral labor agreement, and other bilateral agreements that shall cover cases of this nature. We need a convention that shall protect the rights of foreign nationals. We also need a legal document that shall protect diplomats who only want to help our nationals in distress.

As of today, we are unprotected except by the general reference to our diplomatic immunity. Protected or unprotected, the call for help could not wait. And so, we are taking risks. Lives of Filipinos are at stake and someone must be prepared to put his head on the block.

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