Saudi Arabia sets new age limits for OFWs

MANILA, Philippines - Filipino workers applying for work as domestic helper, baby sitter, nurse, flight attendant, and family driver in Saudi Arabia should be at least 21 years old, the Saudi government has said. A memorandum issued by the Consul Faisal H. Al-Kahtani of the Saudi Arabian Embassy in the Manila to Philippine recruitment agencies also laid down new minimum age requirements for the following categories: • Dressmakers, 30; • Barber and physical therapist, 35; and • Salesman for textiles and ladies wear apparel shops, 40. The age limits, Al Kahtani told the recruitment firms, are for “strict compliance." The biggest organization of manpower agencies in the Philippines said it found the new age limits reasonable. “Reasonable ‘yun, para matured silang papasok sa trabaho [That’s reasonable, so that they are already matured when they start working]," Victor Fernandez Jr., president of the Philippine Association of Service Exporters, Inc., told GMANews.TV on Friday. He said the age limits is actually for the good of Filipino workers. “Maigi na ‘yun, at least protektado sila [That’s actually better, at least they’re protected]," he said. Philippine labor and welfare officials assigned in the Middle East have been pushing for the minimum age limit, especially for domestic helpers, in view of the prevalence of those below 21 who manifest mental instability. In Saudi Arabia and Jordan, Philippine Overseas Labor Offices (POLOs) have complained that many domestic helpers who either ran away from their employers or were forced out by the employers were teenage women mostly Muslims from Mindanao. The deployment of underage workers from Mindanao also prompted Malacaňang in 2007 to order the Office on Muslim Affairs (OMA) to help stop the deployment of underage Muslim women for their own good. - GMANews.TV