OFWabroad.com

I began to explore OFWguide.com a little bit more and I happened to browse around and stumbled across OFWabroad.com. The tagline of this website is: "News, views, stories for the OFW." The purpose of this site is self explanatoy from the tagline. It provides news on POEA, recruitment agencies, and others stories that may be relevant for people who want to or currently work overseas. There is one main blogger who goes by carmela. What I like about this blog is that it is divided into different categories and it has a lot of information for the global worker.

The blogs for the month of October include ones on potential overseas scams, information about looking for jobs and a network site for OFW's. Two blogs talk about warnings about working in China and Taiwan because of legal reasons and advises workers what to do if they are working in those two counties. The issue with China is with undocumented workers and even though there is a demand for teachers in China, the country is forbidden to hire teachers and even domestic workers overseas. Another blog highlights OFWNation.com, a networking site for OWF’s, similar to the ever popular Facebook and MySpace. It just another way for many OFW’s to get to know each other. Carmela states that a really good thing about this website is that the Internet makes brings families who are thousands of miles apart, closer than ever.

I have been looking at several sites and blogs that discussed Kuwait and this blog has information about the country once again. One blog states that there are a lot of illegal workers in Kuwait and another says OFWs are needed in the country. I do wonder how much about Kuwait people know because I am convinced that it is not the safest place to be.

I think that this is a good website because it is able to provide safe information for people who are overseas and their family’s back home. There are a lot of blogs on OFW warnings, showing that the blogger cares about the safety of OFW’s.

Sentenced to Death?

http://www.time.com/time/international/1995/951023/justice.html

The link above posts a story from 1995 about a young Filipina woman Sarah Balabagan was sentenced to death for stabbing her employer to death after he had raped her. This story is unique because she was about 16 years old hen this incident happened. Against her family’s will she fled the Philippines and lied about her age so that she can work in Kuwait and help her family financially. Filipina workers were never treated with equality in Kuwait and its surrounding areas. This can be evident since the 1970s. Sarah’s employer had been giving sexually harassing from the time of her arrival and even was willing to give her gold in exchange for her virginity. Because of her Muslim beliefs, she refused this offer. Later he then took a knife to her neck and raped her. After it was over she was able to get away and used that knife to stab him 34 times. Obviously she did this out of self-defense.
The article recalls of other events where pinay workers have murdered employers in self-defense. One worker was on death row for a double murder in Singapore. This just shows that there are countries that do not have laws that protect employees. There is a great deal of injustice of Filipina women and their rights have been violated. A female employer beaten a Filipina worker to death and she was given a 5 year prison sentence. How is that different from Balabagan’s story? It seems that when workers go overseas, sometimes they would surrender their rights as a human. This is my third blog on Kuwait and they all show stories of injustice and mistreatment of their workers. What gives?

Filipino Workers Struggle Amid Economic Downturn

In this news article, it talks about the declining economy of the world and the effects of Filipinos and OFWs. Its features a woman and her OFW sister who has been working in Hong Kong for 22 years as a domestic worker. The money that the working sister brings home helps pay for the family’s food, bills and everything to be able to survive.
Last year there were about 8 million OFW working overseas, about 10% of the Philippines’ population. They sent over $15 billion USD back home and it greatly helped the Philippine economy. Many Filipinos, both in the country and OFWs are very worried that the jobs OFWs have will not be guaranteed next year because of the economy.
Many citizens believe that the government is not helping out too much and needs to stop up and help the families. They believe to help out the economy in the country, issues need to be solved within the country. If Filipinos are able to work in their own country then they can support their own economy.
I think that this article brings up important points. It shows how much OFWs are helping out the country of the Philippines and its direct impact on the families. Many people want the president Gloria M. Arroyo to be more proactive in supporting families, but I think that with her political affiliation, she will not. I actually heard from a workshop that GMA does encourage many Filipinos to leave the Philippines and work from overseas. Right now the Philippines is in debt from the Ferdinand Marcos regime and any source of income will be very beneficial. With the declining economy, I am worried for my family who are living in the Philippines because they will be deeply affected by everything that is going on.