THE Department of Migrant Workers (DMW) repeated its warning to Filipinos eyeing overseas employment against accepting jobs in a third country that is not their original choice, lest they fall victims to trafficking syndicates.
DMW officer-in-charge Hans Leo Cacdac raised this Wednesday following reports that at least 128 overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) have sought assistance from the Philippine labor attaché in the United Arab Emirates.
The DMW noted that numerous employment opportunities ostensibly offered by recruiters online had already victimized hundreds of OFWs who had the misfortune of working for abusive employers this year.
Cacdac said returning or vacationing OFWs from Saudi Arabia were being lured by job offers on Facebook or TikTok about supposedly “better jobs” in other countries.
The scheme involves OFWs using their re-entry visa to go back to their original place of employment but later on accepting the job offers to a third country.
Cacdac said almost all of the OFWs who already have jobs in the Middle East eventually opt to work in a third country without knowing offhand the nature of the job.
“They already have jobs, but are still lured to take alternative jobs elsewhere by illegal recruiters, only to find out that the working conditions are not good and the pay is insufficient,” Cacdac said.
“The whole arrangement is illegal,” he stressed.