EDITORIAL- Another OFW death in Kuwait

Remember Joanna Demafelis? In February 2018, the body of the 29-year-old overseas Filipino worker was found stuffed in a freezer in an apartment in Kuwait that had been abandoned by Lebanese Nader Essam Assaf and his Syrian wife Mouna Ali Hassoun, who had employed Demafelis as a househelper. Hassoun is still serving her sentence for the crime in Syria; Assaf is on trial in Lebanon.

Kuwaiti authorities believed Demafelis, who bore signs of severe beating with her ribs broken, had been dead for a year. The murderers were tried in absentia and sentenced to death in Kuwait. OFW deployment to Kuwait, suspended by Rodrigo Duterte, gradually resumed after a deal was signed by the two governments to improve protection for migrant workers. The ban was fully lifted in February 2020.

The lethal abuse of OFW household helpers in Kuwait, however, did not end with Demafelis. In May 2019, Constancia Lago Dayag, 47, was also murdered after reportedly being physically and sexually assaulted in Kuwait. Her employer, Bader Ibrahim Mohammad Hussain, has been charged with murder. Later that year on Dec. 28, Jeanelyn Villavende was killed by her female employer reportedly due to jealousy. The employer has been sentenced to death while her husband was meted four years in prison for not reporting the crime.

Last Sunday, the body of another OFW household worker was found, this time in the Kuwaiti desert. Jullebee Ranara’s remains bore severe burns. Kuwait authorities have arrested the son of the 35-year-old OFW’s employer. Details of the murder including the motive are still being pieced together.

In the past decades, stories of physical and sexual assault and murder at the hands of foreign employers have been depressingly common among OFWs. Filipino women employed as household helpers, who can be easily locked down in their workplaces, are the most vulnerable to abuse.

This is just among the tolls of the OFW phenomenon, which is fueled by a need for decent employment that millions of Filipinos cannot find in their own country. Pope Francis, when he visited the Philippines in 2015, lamented the toll of the OFW phenomenon on families. Children are growing up without one or both parents; marriages come under heavy pressure and are sometimes permanently broken.

The government can review with Kuwait the agreement for the protection of migrant workers. The long-term effort, however, must be to create an environment right here in the country that will make it unnecessary for most Filipinos to risk abuse and go abroad to find gainful employment.