Occupational hazards abroad

Labor Attachés and Welfare officers are truly the unheralded and unlamented servants of the servants in overseas labor. Their jobs are hazardous to their health. They do not just fade away. They usually die of heart attacks, fatal accidents or are caught in the crossfires of wars and revolutions.

The human rights advocates usually harass them for not being able to respond to all calls for help in cases of rapes, murders and unfair labor practices against OFWs. They are often maligned for not doing enough for the migrant workers, or are exposed to character assasinations due to their passionate advocacy to fight for the rights of oppressed migrant workers. 

They are usually subjected to threats and harassments emanating from unscrupulous recruiters, greedy traffickers and dishonest recruitment agents who earn their bread out of the blood, sweat and tears of poor OFWs.

The life of all labor attachés are expected to end in tragedy, consisting of broken families, ill health, financial disasters and depressions, that constitute as unfitting rewards for decades of public service. 

Welfare officers are also exposed to contamination due to their constant visits to hospitals where sick and injured are confined. They often retire either sick or debilitated, or facing cases for failure to liquidate advances and thus loss all their retirement benefits

The wounded healers

Consider the travails that we experience here in the Middle East. We are taking care of OFWs who are wounded psychologically due to separation anxieties, away from their families, wounded emotionally due to extreme cruelty inflicted by some heartless employers and wounded financially due to the greed, dishonesty and scheming manipulations of certain recruiters and traffickers. We, labor attachés and welfare officers are mandated to heal these woundedness in OFWs. And yet, we, ourselves are similarly wounded.

We work from 7am up to 10pm because our post is undermanned. There are 140,000 OFWs in Kuwait and there is only one labor attaché and one welfare officer with a few staff. Everyday, more than a hundred come to our office to complain of illegal recruitment, of contract substitution and contract violations, of non-payment and underpayment of salaries, of illegal dismissals, of harassments, discriminations, of poor working conditions, of rape and sexual harassment by employers and managers, of physical abuse, verbal abuse and all forms of unfair labor practices. 

The volume of demand for our services is too overwhelming. We are tired, overworked, under constant pressure. We, too, suffer but just bear, in silence, our pain and our own woundedness.

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