Hail labor office rules in favor of two Filipinos

The labor office in Hail rescued two maltreated Filipino household service workers (HSWs) and turned them over to the Philippine Overseas Labor Office (POLO) representative in the region.
“The two, Marcelina Janapin and Rowena Derea, were turned over to us,” a POLO (Riyadh) representative in Hail, Ameera Luna Domingo, told Arab News on Saturday.
Domingo said the two workers are now waiting for the issuance of exit visas and tickets so that they could return to their families in the Philippines.
Domingo had taken the matter to the director general of the Ministry of Labor in Hail, Saleh Al-Ahmari, who then formed a five-member all-female board to probe the complaint against the local employer.
The board included Kafra Al-Teimani (head of women’s affairs at the Ministry of Labor in Hail), Haifa Al-Shammari, Ohood Al-Shammari, Moneera Al-Shammari and Miznah Al-Dawood.
The employer denied the complaint but Janapin and Derea stood firm, saying their charge could be verified by calling the telephone numbers of two families to whom they had been rented out for SR5,000 a month.
Under the Saudi-Philippine labor agreement signed in 2013, a sponsor cannot rent out his/her worker to other individuals or families.
Domingo said the employer had set up a beauty parlor, which she uses it as front to hire workers whom she rented out as housemaids.
Janapin and Derea were hired in Manila by the Mayon International Trading Corp. which had been found out to have been closed.
Janapin and Derea signed a contract as dressmakers for a salary of SR1,875 plus SR300 food allowance a month but were given only SR1,200 to SR1,300.
Derea claimed that she received SR1,500 twice and was told to buy food on both occasions.