The members of the Filipino delegation who have started arriving in the country are expected to hold a series of meetings with the concerned government agencies to solve the current crisis and both sides are expected to put forward their views for a fruitful cooperation and resume sending new domestic workers to Kuwait, especially in light of the two moratorium decisions issued recently by both sides.
The Al-Jarida daily has learned that the meetings are expected touch on several issues to find solutions to outstanding issues, foremost of which is the problem of overcrowding of female workers in a building affiliated to the embassy, who are believed to be in hundreds.
The sources explained that the meetings will also discuss the speed of settling labor disputes and restoring the financial rights of the employees especially when employers refuse to pay salary of the workers such as the monthly salaries or end-of-service dues, or the issue of withholding the workers’ documents (the civil card or passport).
This is in addition to confirming the role assigned to the labor shelter affiliated to the Public Authority for Manpower which is supposed to promptly solve the disputes that may arise between workers and their employers.
Meanwhile, the Philippine Embassy in Kuwait coinciding with the arrival of the first official Philippine delegation to Kuwait to discuss the labor crisis spoke of the difficulty in the talks, with Kuwait sticking to its position regarding the two points of the Philippine embassy shelter and the labor offices communicating with workers’ sponsors considering them the gateway to any solution to the crisis.
Kuwait considers these two points represent a violation of laws and the bilateral labor agreement, and therefore no embassy may establish such a shelter center outside the affiliation of the two authorities concerned in this regard — the Ministry of Social Affairs and the Public Authority for Manpower.
The Kuwaiti side said PAM and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs adhere to the directives of the First Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Interior and Acting Minister of Defense Sheikh Talal Al-Khaled regarding “Manila’s non-compliance with the terms of the labor agreement”, and the Philippines escalated its rhetoric and confirmed in the words of its Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs Eduardo de Vega, that she has no intention of “closing the embassy shelter for runaway or mistreated workers in Kuwait, despite the pressure that Kuwait exerts on the Philippines government, and the ban it imposed on our workers.”
While Kuwait is concerned about the shelter that the Philippine government has established in foreign lands, the Philippines will not close it because it will have negative repercussions on our workers,” de Vega said, in a television interview.
“First of all, if we shut it down, what will happen to the fleeing Filipinos?” she asked. They will end up on the streets and be arrested by the police, so we confirm that we do not intend to close this shelter, which was one of the two recurring issues that the Kuwaiti government was concerned about regarding the bilateral labor agreement between the two countries.”
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