Goodbye to all that?

We normally see these horror stories only in the movies, but life can be more gruesome than fiction. Especially for vulnerable sectors of society, such as female household helpers working for foreign employers overseas.

The death of Joanna Daniela Demafelis in Kuwait, while not the first for an overseas Filipino worker, is remarkable in its brutality. The body of the 28-year-old domestic helper from Iloilo was found in a freezer in her employers’ home, reportedly with stab wounds in the neck and torture marks in the body. Since her employers, Lebanese Nader Assaf and his Syrian wife abandoned the apartment in Kuwait in November 2016, Demafelis’ body must have been in the freezer since then.

The two are being hunted down by Interpol together with Demafelis’ recruiters from Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Global E-Human Resources Inc. in the Philippines and Fadilah Farz Kaued Al Khodor Recruitment Agency in Kuwait.

There have been numerous stories of overseas Filipino workers, especially household helpers, being burned with irons, kept virtually in detention and, yes, of being raped and killed, and the stories have lost their shock factor. But the grisly story of Demafelis has forced our horrified nation to revisit the OFW phenomenon and its steep costs.

Her tragic fate has prompted President Duterte to suspend indefinitely the deployment of Filipinos to Kuwait, and to order the evacuation of any of the estimated 250,000 OFWs in the Middle Eastern state who want to return home.

About 75 percent of those 250,000 work as domestic helpers. Last week, with Duterte publicly frothing at the mouth over reports that several OFWs had committed suicide after being raped in Kuwait, its embassy sent me a book about human rights in that country.

*      *      *

The book emphasizes that Kuwait upholds basic human rights including “absolute” freedom of belief; freedom of the press, expression and assembly; the right to life, and protection from bondage, slavery, human trafficking and torture.

“When considering the reality of human rights in Kuwait, we find they have been realized to a great extent and are deeply rooted,” the book declares.

The rights are linked to “divine codes and laws.” This, the book states, “serves to buttress (the rights), render them axiomatic, and limit the chances of undermining them, violating them or compromising them.”

A section details labor rights: “Due to Kuwait’s need for labor in every facet of life and because of its limited population and high demand for labor, the state has sought labor from abroad, resulting in a foreign labor presence that outnumbers its residents. These workers are employed by the government and the private sector, with some employed as domestic servants.”

Under the section on “domestic servants,” the book says Kuwaiti laws prohibit the collection of recruitment or employment fees from such workers as well as the confiscation of their passports. Domestic helpers are entitled to one day off a week and cannot be forced to work more than eight hours a day. They are also entitled to a one-month paid leave for every year of working with their employer, and a free return ticket to their homeland.

The book, published by Kuwait’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, states that the country “has attached great importance to teaching human rights be it in public education or university education.” The regular high school curriculum now includes a subject on “the Constitution and Human Rights.”

Among the purposes of the human rights curricula, according to the book, is “raising awareness of the importance of democracy, the constitution, and human rights.”

Demafelis’ employers are from Lebanon and Syria, but the employers of the OFWs who committed suicide apparently after being raped are believed to be Kuwaitis. Maybe the rapists fell asleep in class, or the human rights subjects were introduced long after they had graduated.

*      *      *

President Duterte is rightfully outraged over the reported suicides and the murder of Demafelis, although he has also received flak for his human rights record while appealing for humane and dignified treatment for OFWs.

Perhaps he can sustain his outrage long enough to implement the necessary reforms that will at least slow down the exodus of Filipinos for better paying jobs overseas.

This means creating an environment conducive to the creation of meaningful jobs that will entice our millions of OFWs to come home.

We still mention 10 million as the number of Filipinos working abroad, but this figure has been cited for several years now. The actual figure must be at least 12 million, or more than a tenth of our entire population.

We lack not only the employment alternatives to persuade them to come home, but also the political will. Which administration will risk losing the estimated $2 billion remitted annually by that large army of overseas workers? Let’s see if Duterte and his economic team can say goodbye to all that.

Those robust economic growth figures, powered in large part by OFW remittances, provide an excuse for not changing the way we do business in this country. The political elite, along with the entrenched oligarchs and monopolists, will simply say, look at that GDP growth rate! We must be doing something right. Nothing’s broke, nothing needs fixing.

Unhappy with the lack of inclusive growth, rent-seeking, chronic corruption, political dynasties and warlords, the absence of a meritocracy and the rule of law? Leave the country.

Millions of Filipinos have done just that. Some never return to their homeland. Others come home… in a coffin.

In the worst cases, their remains are transferred to the coffin from a household freezer.