Manila urged to do more to stop the flow of illegal job seekers

DUBAI // The Philippine government should do more to prevent job seekers from coming to the UAE on tourist visas, according to a Filipino labour official speaking ahead of Filipino Migrant Workers Day today. "If we cannot completely stop the practice, let's minimise it," said Amilbahar Amilasan, the Philippines government's new labour attaché covering Dubai and the Northern Emirates.

"We should have a working mechanism. The airport immigration officers in our country can distinguish a legitimate tourist from a job seeker." His comments come after Maher Hamad al Obad, the executive director for inspection at the UAE Ministry of Labour, estimated in an interview for a Migration Policy Institute report that 20 to 30 per cent of migrants enter with a visitor visa in hand, find an employer and change status while in the UAE or in a third country.

"Such easy access to visitor visas, however, makes it difficult for the Philippine government to maintain oversight and regulate migrant workers, many of whom are vulnerable," said the report's author, the analyst Dovelyn Rannveig Agunias. Mr Amilasan said workers should ensure they have the proper documents before heading to the UAE for work. "They should apply through a recruitment agency accredited with the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration," he said. "We've had cases of people arriving in the UAE only to find out that the jobs were non-existent."

Mr Amilasan said people who had fallen prey to illegal recruitment and human trafficking have been coming to him for help since he took over the job in March. "I haven't documented them yet but we've had many walk-ins who said they were offered hotel jobs but were forced into prostitution when they arrived in the country." Labour and welfare officials in Dubai manage a shelter in their office premises. Women who have fled their employer's home can stay there until their cases are resolved. The majority of their complaints concern unpaid salaries, long working hours, inadequate food and sleep, verbal abuse and other forms of mistreatment.

Mr Amilasan and Mary Simangan, the welfare officer, will be among the speakers at the first migrants' forum, which will be held at Al Nasr Leisureland in Dubai on June 18. The officials will discuss the rights of migrant workers and their working conditions, and the assistance provided by Philippine diplomats in Dubai. The forum is an initiative by the UAE branch of Migrante, an organisation created to protect Filipino workers overseas, in celebration of Migrant Workers Day in the UAE.

"Filipino migrants are helping keep our economy afloat, but their rights and welfare have often been neglected," said Nhel Morona, Migrante-UAE's secretary general. Nearly 600,000 Filipinos live and work in the Emirates, accounting for 12 per cent of the country's population, according to the Commission on Filipinos Overseas in Manila. @Email:[e-mail]