Two Filipina domestic workers in Kuwait who were abused by their employers were not paid their salaries, one of them for 10 years.
One domestic worker named Joy said she was not paid her salary for almost 10 years. Joy said her employer claimed she would deposit Joy’s salary in the bank and send some of the money to her family in Manila, Kuwait Times reported.
However, Joy said the employer had lied about the arrangement. When Joy escaped from her employer in 2015 and sought help from the Philippine Embassy, she was finally able to contact her family after 10 years, only to learn that they had never received any money from her employer.
Joy remained in Kuwait and filed a case against her employer. However, the case has already dragged on for three years. “According to the people at the embassy, my lawyer, who was provided by the embassy, filed my complaint at the wrong office,” Joy said.
Another Filipino domestic worker named Nora, who worked for her Syrian employer in Kuwait for 13 years, has not received her salary for the last six years. She was told by her employer that her salary had been sent to her family in the Philippines. The employer also showed Nora remittance documents, which turned out to be fake.
Nora escaped from her employer’s house last year and went to the Philippine Embassy for help. She said she will only return home to the Philippines once she gets her unpaid salary.
“I refused to be sent back home because I wanted to get the money I worked for. If I go back home, I am sure my case will not progress,” Nora said.
According to Human Rights Watch, there are more than 660,000 domestic workers in Kuwait, of whom approximately 160,000 are Filipinos.