My novel, Taking Cover, is partly the story of an American woman who goes to Kuwait to work. She is distressed by the human rights violations experienced there by foreign workers from poorer countries and she tries to find ways to help that get her into trouble. The article below appeared at the end of last month (April 29, 2018) in The Jakarta Post. While I addressed the issue with fiction, it is a very real dilemma for poor foreigners who work to send money home to their families.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Sunday said the temporary ban on Filipinos going to work in Kuwait is now permanent, intensifying a diplomatic standoff over the treatment of migrant workers in the Gulf nation.
Duterte in February imposed a prohibition on workers heading to Kuwait following the murder of a Filipina maid whose body was found stuffed in a freezer in the Gulf state.
The crisis deepened after Kuwaiti authorities last week ordered Manila's envoy to leave the country over videos of Philippine embassy staff helping workers in Kuwait flee allegedly abusive employers.
The two nations had been negotiating a labour deal that Philippine officials said could result in the lifting of the ban but the recent escalation in tensions has put an agreement in doubt.
"The ban stays permanently. There will be no more recruitment for especially domestic helpers. No more," Duterte told reporters in his hometown in the southern city of Davao.
Around 262,000 Filipinos work in Kuwait, nearly 60 percent of them domestic workers, according to the Philippines' foreign department.
Last week the Philippines apologised over the rescue videos but Kuwaiti officials announced they were expelling Manila's ambassador and recalling their own envoy from the Southeast Asian nation.
Duterte on Sunday described the situation in Kuwait as a "calamity".
