Bound for Kuwait

Anna (not her real name) bids her husband goodbye for the last time before putting her phone on airplane mode.  She has been talking to him for some 20 minutes now, saying endless goodbyes. “Kiss the children for me.” “Take care.” “Don’t forget my reminders.”

I am seated right next to her on a flight to Doha, Qatar, departing from the Ninoy Aquino International Airport and I couldn’t help overhear the conversation.

 “Bye, Ga,” she tells him one last time. The next time she will see him and their children will be after two years.

 Anna, 40 years old, is bound for Kuwait, she would later tell me. She was just in the Philippines for a month-long vacation and is now on her way back to work.

A mother of two – 16 and 11 – Anna works as a waitress for a popular restaurant chain in the Arab state for four years now. The pay is good and her mostly Filipino colleagues are nice. She also has a good employer who grants her paid vacation leave of 40 days every two years. 

Total ban

But I was surprised to hear that she was headed for Kuwait.

“What about the ban?” I asked her. “What about the government’s repatriation activities?”

 In February, the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) issued a total ban on the deployment of OFWs to Kuwait after the remains of domestic helper Joanna Demafelis was found in a freezer in the apartment of her Lebanese employer.  

Anna said she is not covered by the ban because she is a returning OFW and not a new employee there.

 Despite the good intentions of the ban, Anna said she feels for those affected by the labor department’s order.

No jobs

She said there were so many OFWs and would-be OFWs who were affected by the ban. The government said some 5,000 were affected.

 Some already spent for their placement fees, but could not leave because of President Duterte’s order, Anna said.

 Duterte wants to bring home all OFWs  around the world, and not just those in Kuwait – there are around 10 million – by the end of his term, but Anna said this is far from ideal, considering the lack of gainful opportunities in the country.

“There aren’t enough jobs in the Philippines. The government should realize that,” she said.

Even if she finds a job at home, Anna said it wouldn’t be the same.

“In Kuwait, we have free lodging and allowance, but in the Philippines, we don’t. We have to spend so much so if we work in our country, we would end up with very little take-home pay,” she said.

It’s difficult to work away from her family, but Anna knows no other way.

A second generation OFW, she was only in first year high school when her mother left to work as a domestic helper in Korea. She had to be the surrogate mother to her two younger siblings. After she graduated from college, she followed in her mother’s footsteps and worked as a DH, too, in Korea.

Horror stories

A cousin eventually persuaded her to move to Kuwait for a better and higher-paying job, and that’s how she ended up in the restaurant.

There are many opportunities as DH, but Anna admits there were just too many horror stories about maltreatment and rape by Kuwaiti employers.

True enough, there have been 196 deaths of Filipino workers in the Gulf country since 2016. This is on top of 6,000 cases of abuse, sexual harassment, and rape filed with the Philippine embassy in 2017, according to the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration.

Despite the risks, she hopes the ban would be lifted for the sake of her fellow OFWs.

She is glad she is still able to work. To be covered by the ban would be unthinkable, she said.

Anna is the breadwinner, while her husband, who used to be an OFW takes care of the children. She prefers it that way.

“I can’t risk it. There’s just too much temptation for men,” she said.

Partial lifting of the ban

 The government said the ban on the deployment of workers to Kuwait may be partially lifted because of an agreement that would pave the way for the normalization of diplomatic ties between the Philippines and Kuwait.

Based on the agreement, Filipino domestic workers should be given proper food and be allowed to own, possess and use cellular phones. Their passports would also be deposited at the Philippine embassy for safekeeping and not kept by their employers.

Philippines and Kuwait signed the agreement last week.

Back in Kuwait

 After nine hours, we finally arrive at the Hamad International Airport in Doha where Anna would be catching her four-hour flight to Kuwait.

I bid her goodbye and wished her luck. She gave me a warm smile before walking toward the rest of her life in the Arabian Peninsula, somewhere between her heart and her home. 

Iris Gonzales’ e-mail address is [email protected]