Slain Filipina's employers in Kuwait charged with murder —Bello

Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III on Tuesday said the Kuwaiti employers of Filipino domestic worker Jeanelyn Villavende have already been charged with murder.

“Yesterday, I was informed that the employers have been formally charged with murder,” Bello said during the Senate labor committee hearing on the maltreatment of Filipino workers abroad.

He said the employers are detained in a facility for high criminals.

Malacañang, meanwhile, welcomed the indictment.

“Okay ‘yon. Di ba ‘yon ang hinihingi natin, justice,” presidential spokesperson Salvador Panelo told reporters.

Villavende was killed allegedly by her own Kuwaiti employers, one of whom was a member of the Kuwait Ministry of Interior, last December, only five months after she left the Philippines to work in Kuwait.

An autopsy conducted by the National Bureau of Investigation on Villavende’s body found that she sustained “multiple, severe, traumatic injuries” and indications of sexual abuse.

The Philippines has imposed a total deployment ban on Kuwait because of the incident.

Bello said the government will not lift the ban if Villavende will not be given justice and if Kuwait will not agree into signing a standard contract.

“The ban will stay if Jeanelyn will not be given justice and if you will not agree to harmonize standard contract,” he said. —with Virgil Lopez/KBK, GMA News