Villar: DOLE, DTI, DA can provide alternative livelihood and job opportunities for OFWs affected by the Kuwait deployment ban

"I join the entire nation in mourning OFW JeanelynVillavende's tragic death in Kuwait at the hands of her cruel employer. I join my colleagues in the Senate in condemning her senseless killing. The DFA should hire the best legal team to assure her bereaved family that justice will be served. DOLE through the POEA should maintain the deployment ban until sufficient reforms are in place to ensure the safety, honor, and dignity of our OFWs in Kuwait."

"Any investigation into this case should include the alleged failure of both the local licensed agency and its foreign counterpart to closely monitor the working and living conditions of Jeanelyn. Based on news reports, the OFW had already been complaining to her local agency of contract violations a month after her deployment to Kuwait. Were these complaints ever acted upon?"

"Let us scale down the deployment of domestic workers to the Middle East until such time that we are able to put in place a more effective monitoring system onsite. Because this is a business, recruitment agencies will accept job orders for domestic workers that may already be beyond their capacity to monitor. This is one aspect of overseas employment that deserves our serious attention."

"Meanwhile, the DOLE, DTI and DA can look into alternative livelihood and local employment opportunities for workers affected by the deployment ban to Kuwait so that they no longer feel compelled to leave the country for the Middle East as domestic workers. Perhaps, their husbands or even the women themselves can be trained to handle basic construction work because there is a huge shortage of skilled workers in the construction field."

Villar Social Institute for Poverty Alleviation & Governance (VILLAR SIPAG) has built 25 construction schools all over the country to train men and women on constructions skills, masonry for men & painting for women.