31 March 2015, The National UAE
ABU DHABI. Filipino workers being sent to non-existent jobs in Dubai have highlighted the desire of recruiters to increase profits through deception and circumventing the law, experts say.
Thirty Filipinas who came to work in Dubai had fled their employers’ homes and sought refuge at a makeshift shelter inside the Philippine overseas labour office in Al Ghusais.
The women were told they would be working in sectors such as the hospitality industry, but ended up as household workers when they arrived in Dubai.
They were hired for jobs such as waitresses, front-desk officers, receptionists, pool attendants, cooks, sales clerks and cleaners.
Copies of their sworn statements against their recruiters were sent to Manila, along with a report prepared by Delmer Cruz, the labour attaché in Dubai.
At least 21 Philippine-based agencies were named in Mr Cruz’s report. They resorted to an illegal practice called reprocessing by passing off a domestic worker as some other type of worker to avoid stringent recruitment requirements.
One of the agencies, Chanceteam International Services, had its licence preventively suspended from January 20 this year. This meant the company could not recruit or deploy workers overseas until further notice.
“The 30 workers were deployed to Dubai in late 2012 up until late last year,” Mr Cruz said yesterday. “About 80 per cent of them have been repatriated, but we were able to get their affidavits while they were with us.”