Another Personal Blog

I thought about my first blogger’s choice and I began to think about my cousin and her experience with overseas Filipina workers. She went to high school in Kuwait while her dad was serving in the military and she told me and my other cousins of how her family housed many Filipinas who worked as domestic workers and were running away from the families that they stayed in. my cousin saw her home as a sanctuary for these women. I cant recall the details, but in general, she told us that the women were being physically abused by their employers and needed to get away from them. Some employers even kept the passports and immigration papers so that the women cannot leave the country.

I remember when I first heard this story; I was very surprised because I did not know much about OFWs at the time and what they were. I heard her story in 2006 and even though I was involved in progressive Filipino groups, I was not familiar with this topic until 2007.

I wanted to look at stories from Kuwait and I stumbled upon a story of a 16 year old OFW that worked as a domestic worker. She was raped by her employer and tried to report it to Philippine Overseas Labor Office through her brother. Her brother tried to get in touch with POLO and the Embassy but was unsuccessfully to get any answers or getting the case investigated by anyone. From the time of that story, the female was still working for the same employer that raped her. I am shocked by this because even though she was helping out her family, she was dehumanized when she got raped and no one would help her out.