Thursday, July 16, 2009

Old News Article in Arab Times

This article I believe is from last July

By Francis A. Cardozo

About 68 Filipino maids are awaiting repatriation at the Deportation Center, and many of them have spent over three months at the facility, according to one of the detainees.

In a telephonic interview, the detainee, who requested anonymity, said that a total of 20 Filipino maids were repatriated a few days ago and asked "Why are we kept here for so long? We want our embassy to send us back home at the earliest available opportunity."

Out of 68 Filipino maids, the maids said 9 belong to a local recruitment agency and gave their names as follows: Janet Balapero, Shirley Madelosu, Analin Carpew, Mabel, Irene Castro, Jocelyn Bitos and C. Gabonada.

According to the maid, a majority of Filipino detainees reportedly have passports and all that they need is plane tickets home.

She added that a majority of the 68 maids ran away from their sponsors due to "over work and maltreatment while some were implicated in false cases"

She also said that the air tickets issued to many maids have reportedly expired owing to the delay in repatriating them, even as she exhorted the embassy to take speedy measures to ensure that they are sent home within the next few days.
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as I've said before, present figures are in the hundreds and beyond...

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yeah, you won't get local writers commenting or reporting on these issues. This does not strike me as surprising since not so many bloggers out there have shown the same attitude. A previous commentator mentioned the role of the media, which is a good place to start.

Q8NRI said...

Nabeel,

At least the Philippines Embassy helps their citizens by providing all possible resources and supports them...can we say this same thing about our embassy?

These things come in the local media because their Embassy makes noise and highlights it. But, our embassy tries to hush up such similar cases. I have yet to come across any other country supporting its citizens more than the Philippines.

Anonymous said...

As much as it is appreciated, this article fails in comparison to what you witness and write about yourself. Your own posts far supersedes what this article aims to accomplish; what you witness on an almost day to day basis has greatly moved me and many others.

Keep bringing up these atrocious witnessed stories in hopes that more people will react in a humane manner towards them.

Anonymous said...

Check out todays Arab Times;

http://www.arabtimesonline.com/kuwaitnews/pagesdetails.asp?nid=34867&ccid=9

Unknown said...

thanks anon at 12 29- i just think once in a while it pays to include 'real' documentation because some people just dont believe what i put down here.

Q8NRI - so true - the Indian Embassy is completely worthless when it comes to dealing with this situation. As far as I have seen the philippines embassy is the only one that truly helps its citizens out
and now to some small extent the ethiopian embassy

Unknown said...

anon at 9:14

OMG thanks for pointing that out to me. Awful awful awful... and yet the employers we deal with on a frequent basis are ALL like this - same attitudes, same devilish behaviour...

ive posted this article as the next post!