MANILA, Philippines – Twenty overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, got ejected from their company-provided accommodations after they refused to work due to two months’ worth of unpaid salaries and food allowances.

The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), which released this information on Tuesday, October 2, said the Philippine government is helping bring the 20 OFWs back to the Philippines. 

The “are now being taken care of at the Bahay Kalinga by the Philippine Overseas Labor Office, which is now making arrangements for their repatriation in coordination with their Philippine recruitment agency.”

“The workers were recruited by a major Saudi recruitment agency, which later transferred them, upon their request, to their present company which assigned them to work as cleaners in Jeddah hospitals and residential homes. The company, however, failed to pay their salaries and food allowances,” said the DFA.

More than 10 million Filipinos work overseas to seek better opportunities and send back money to their families. Of this number, around 2.3 million work in the Middle East and Africa.

While abroad, however, many OFWs suffer abuses under their employers.

On September 20, the DFA said a torture case was filed against a Saudi employer who allegedly forced OFW Agnes Mancilla, 35, to drink household bleach. Earlier this year, the body of 29-year-old Filipina maid Joanna Dimafelis was found in a freezer in Kuwait. – Rappler.com