A migrant workers' group yesterday urged the Philippine government to file a protest and review ties with the United Arab Emirates following reports that a rising number of Filipina maids are being abused by their employers in the Gulf country.
More than 60 Filipina maids have sought refuge at the Philippine consulate in Dubai, living in a makeshift shelter there to escape beatings and sexual harassment and seek unpaid wages.
Filipinas have been flooding into the fast-growing city to work as maids for as little as US$160 a month.
But the influx has led to the number seeking shelter to double in recent weeks, with as many as five runaways a day fleeing to the consulate, labor attache Vicente Cabe said in Dubai.
"The Philippine government should immediately lodge a diplomatic protest and review our relations with the United Arab Emirates in view of new reports of abused Filipina workers," the Migrante organization said in a statement. "The Philippine government must take immediate action to teach host countries ... that it is not right to condone abusive employers and leave guest workers without a livelihood, without food and without justice."
Consular officials said some runaway maids show up with bruises or allege sexual assault.
Three men have been jailed in the Emirates this year for alleged rape of Filipina maids.
With so many reports of abuse, Indonesia recently banned unskilled women from working in the Gulf as housemaids. Philippine Consul-General Generoso Calonge said he wanted his government to do the same.
Cabe estimated some 36,000 maids are among more than 200,000 Filipinos working in the Emirates. The maids work for local Arabs as well as expatriate European and Asian families.
When a hiker fell from a 55m waterfall in wild New Zealand bush, rescuers were forced to evacuate the badly hurt woman without her dog, which could not be found. After strangers raised thousands of dollars for a search, border collie Molly was flown to safety by a helicopter pilot who was determined to reunite the pet and the owner. A week earlier, an emergency rescue helicopter found the woman with bruises and lacerations after a fall at a rocky spot at the waterfall on the South Island’s West Coast. She was airlifted on March 24, but they were forced to
CONFIDENCE BOOSTER: ’After parkour ... you dare to do a lot of things that you think only young people can do,’ a 67-year-old parkour enthusiast said In a corner of suburban Singapore, Betty Boon vaults a guardrail, crawls underneath a slide, executes forward shoulder rolls and scales a steep slope, finishing the course to applause. “Good job,” the 69-year-old’s coach cheers. This is “geriatric parkour,” where about 20 retirees learned to tackle a series of relatively demanding exercises, building their agility and enjoying a sense of camaraderie. Boon, an upbeat grandmother, said learning parkour has aided her confidence and independence as she ages. “When you’re weak, you will be dependent on someone,” she said after sweating it out with her parkour classmates in suburban Toa Payoh,
HIGH HOPES: The power source is expected to have a future, as it is not dependent on the weather or light, and could be useful for places with large desalination facilities A Japanese water plant is harnessing the natural process of osmosis to generate renewable energy that could one day become a common power source. The possibility of generating power from osmosis — when water molecules pass from a less salty solution to a more salty one — has long been known. However, actually generating energy from that has proved more complicated, in part due the difficulty of designing the membrane through which the molecules pass. Engineers in Fukuoka, Japan, and their private partners think they might have cracked it, and have opened what is only the world’s second osmotic power plant. It generates
Chinese dissident artist Gao Zhen (高兟), famous for making provocative satirical sculptures of former Chinese leader Mao Zedong (毛澤東), was tried on Monday over accusations of “defaming national heroes and martyrs,” his wife and a rights group said. Gao, 69, who was detained in 2024 during a visit from the US, faces a maximum three-year prison sentence, said his wife, Zhao Yaliang (趙雅良), and Shane Yi, a researcher at the Chinese Human Rights Defenders group which operates outside the nation. The closed-door, one-day trial took place at Sanhe City People’s Court in Hebei Province neighboring the capital, Beijing, and ended without a
RSS