Villanueva's statement on the total lifting of deployment ban to Kuwait

We welcome the President's order to totally lift the deployment ban of overseas Filipino workers to Kuwait.

Following the recent signing of a memorandum of understanding that provides for additional protection of Filipino workers in the Gulf state, we hope that we can totally prevent abuses against our OFWs especially to our household services workers who are vulnerable to abuse.

We want to reiterate that we are pushing for the professionalization of our HSWs and the free exercise of their rights in host countries consistent with the ILO Convention 189 on Domestic Work, which our country actively campaigned for to ensure the protection of our HSWs.

We would also want to share that during our meeting with Labor Secretary Bebot Bello yesterday, he assured us that our OFWs will have better working conditions.

One of the things we tackled was the establishment of an OFW Hotline open for our migrant workers 24/7. The OFW Hotline is one tool to better assist our kababayans who want to seek help in Kuwait.