Migrante-Middle East condemned the Marcos regime for bringing up the plan to ban deployment of migrant workers to Kuwait, after the death of another Filipina there. Jenny Alvarado, along with other migrant workers, died on January 2 from “coal suffocation” while working at her employer’s house.

The ban on working in Kuwait will not solve many cases of abuse and crime against Filipino workers in that country, according to Migrante-ME.

“Deployment bans have been employed many times by the government during high profile cases of OFW deaths, but these bans have not addressed the root causes of the problem,” the group stated. “Deployment bans have not stopped cases of OFW deaths, grave cases of maltreatment, human trafficking and illegal recruitment,” it said.

In previous deployment bans, many Filipino workers were illegally sent by human trafficking operations in Syria, Lebanon and Kuwait. Lebanon, for instance, employed many Filipinos despite the government’s deployment ban since 2006. The ban just prevented them from obtaining appropriate documents.

According to the group, OFWs suffer from human rights violations in the Middle East due to escalating wars and conflicts, economic and political crises, discrimination and violence. Amid all this, the Philippine government has failed to protect them.

“The genuine solution to problems such as the exploitation and abuse of our OFWs abroad lies not in intensifying export of Filipino labor but in generating decent jobs at home,” the group said.