MANILA, Jan. 7 (Xinhua) -- The Philippines has started implementing the government ban on sending Filipino household service workers (HSWs) to Kuwait, an immigration official said on Tuesday.
"The Bureau of Immigration (BI) announced that it has started implementing the government ban on the deployment of newly-hired domestic workers to Kuwait," Grifton Medina, acting BI port operations division chief, said in a statement.
The Philippines announced on Jan. 2 that it will stop sending newly-hired maids to Kuwait while an investigation into the recent killing of a Filipino maid allegedly in the hands of her female employer is underway.
Medina said immigration officers in different international ports have been instructed to strictly enforce the ban imposed by the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE).
"The ban applies to all newly-hired household service workers," Medina said.
Medina said the bureau implemented the ban after it received a copy of a resolution from the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) on Jan. 3 ordering a partial deployment ban of Filipino domestic workers to Kuwait.
Kuwait is one of the major labor destinations for Filipinos in the Middle East, with over 250,000 currently working there, mostly as domestic helpers.
However, Manila enforced a deployment ban for Filipino workers in Kuwait in early 2018 after the body of another Filipino maid was found in the freezer of her employer's house.
The ban was lifted in May 2018 after the Philippines and Kuwait inked a memorandum of agreement that provides "legal protection for Filipino maids in the Gulf State."
