A non-government organization has asked the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration to bar Kuwait social media influencer and celebrity make-up artist Sondos al-Qattan from hiring a domestic worker from the Philippines.
This after Al-Qattan posted a video on Instagram where she questioned why Filipino domestic helpers enjoy a day off every week and are allowed to bring their passports with them as part of a new labor agreement between the Philippines and Kuwait.
“How can you have a servant at home who keeps their own passport with them? Honestly, with this new contract, I just wouldn’t get a Filipino maid. She’d only work six days a week and get four days off a month,” she said in her now deleted post.
Susan Ople, head of the Blas F. Ople Policy Center, said the blogger, who has 2.3-million Instagram followers and over 100,000 Twitter fans, personifies the ugly face of modern-day slavery and should be included in the POEA’s blacklist of abusive and undesirable foreign employers.
“By her words, publicly uttered and shared through social media, her undesirability as a foreign employer cannot be denied. She is not worthy to be even in the same room as our valiant and hardworking OFWs,” Ople said.
POEA Administrator Bernard Olalia agreed to the NGO’s request.
“The bilateral labor agreement that the Philippines recently signed with Kuwait and the guidelines issued by the POEA very clearly states that the passport should be in the possession of the domestic worker and that she is entitled to a weekly day off. Kuwaiti employers who refuse to follow these provisions shall be immediately blacklisted,” Olalia said.
Ople also urged other countries that send domestic workers to Kuwait to include Al-Qattan in their list of undesirable employers.
“We call on all labor-sending countries especially those that deploy domestic workers to Kuwait to emulate the Philippine government in banning Sondos al-Qattan as a potential employer of Filipino domestic workers. She is a disgrace not just to her country but also to her gender and the rest of humanity,” Ople said.