RIYADH, 4 March 2005 — A Filipino domestic helper who had ended up in jail after she was sent away by her employer in the Eastern Province has been rescued by the Philippine Embassy.

Blondie Colot Jumawan, 29, of Josefina town in the southern Philippine province of Zamboanga del Sur, is now with the Bahay Kalinga shelter in Riyadh under the care of a government social worker.

“She’s now doing fine. She might fly home in the next few days,” Minister Counselor Mariano A. Dumia, charge d’affaires of the Philippine Embassy, told Arab News yesterday.

Dumia led an embassy team in rescuing Jumawan out of a detention center in Dammam on Feb. 23 upon the request of the Philippine Overseas Labor Office (POLO) in the Eastern Province.

Jumawan, who has a Bachelor of Education degree from the Misamis University in Mindanao, came to work as a maid for a family in Dammam on March 1, 2003 through the Samme International Manpower Services in Ermita, Manila.

She worked for Sulaiman Saleh Salman Assaraf and his family — wife Samia and five children for a monthly salary of SR800.

“My work included cooking, cleaning the house, washing and ironing clothes,” she said in an interview with Arab News at the Bahay Kalinga on Wednesday.

She was doing fine with her employer until Madame Samia decided it was time for her to go.

As gathered by the embassy team, Madame Samia’s brother Philip dropped Jumawan at the King Fahd International Airport in Dammam on Feb. 14.

“But instead of boarding her flight, she was giving money away and loitering at the airport, giving the impression that she was out of her mind. She was eventually taken by the police to a detention center,” said Dumia.

Jumawan on Wednesday said she had no idea why her employer sent her away. She could only recall that she wasn’t able to board her flight on Feb. 14 and that on the next day, she was taken by the police and detained for one week until she was rescued.

“In fact, I was held in two detention centers,” she said. “In the first detention center I was with other women who were thin, harried and who looked sickly. One of them was an Ethiopian,” she said, her unusually brown eyes peering into the distance as if trying to recall exactly what had happened to her.

Jumawan recalled that at the airport, she tried to buy chocolates and gave $100. However, she claimed, the salesman did not give her the chocolates. “He also did not give my money back,” she said.

She further said that her wallet containing SR4,000 and $300 was taken by the police when she was taken for detention.

Mental Health

Dumia said that when they took Jumawan out of jail, he asked the employer why they sent her away and was told that they were worried about her mental health.

“Sometimes she was so quiet. She did not talk,” Dumia quoted Assaraf as saying, suggesting that Jumawan was not in her proper frame of mind.

Dumia said the police officers who took her to jail did confiscate her wallet but surrendered it to Captain Fahd A. Al-Busais, chief of the southern Dammam Police Station, for safekeeping. Al Busais eventually turned it over to the embassy team.

“It’s better that the embassy staff keep your money. It will be given back to you when you are about to be repatriated to the Philippines so that you have money when you get there,” Dumia told her.

Dumia said they are going to make sure that Jumawan would reach home safely. He said she will be accompanied by Malou Sedano, POLO administrative assistant in the Eastern Province, on her flight.

Bailano A. Salik, social worker at the Bahay Kalinga, said the POLO is now working on the maid’s papers, seeking an exit visa and plane ticket from her employer and further assistance from the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA).

Asked about her plans when she gets home, Jumawan said, “Maybe I’ll start an eatery.”

Abused or Not?

Could Jumawan have been abused badly that she temporarily lost her sanity?

Dumia said the embassy staff have tried to find out whether that could have been the case, considering that many domestic helpers who seek refuge at the Bahay Kalinga are victims of abusive employers.

But he said Jumawan herself has not complained of being abused. “She had some bruises in her arms but she got them when she struggled as police took her to jail from the airport,” he said yesterday in a telephone interview.

“We also inquired from her cell mates but nobody said she was abused there. In fact the police were nice to her. We waited for only an hour unlike in the case of Michaela delos Santos and Iluminada Curioso,” he said. He was referring to the seamstress and beautician whom he and other embassy and POLO officials rescued last week from their employer in Dammam.

Dumia, whose six-year tour of duty had been extended up to the end of the month, said that the two workers were actually held like prisoners by their employer for two years, not just two months as had been previously reported.

The embassy team rescued the victims with the help of Nahi Saleh Salem Al Rewaii, mayor of the Northern District of Dammam, and police officers sent by the chief of the Dammam Police, Gen. Saleh Al-Watban.

Dumia said delos Santos and Curioso are now in safe hands at the Bahay Kalinga but their case may take some time because the employer had appealed the court ruling in favor of the workers. The two Filipino women are seeking payment of their backwages of up to eight years, Dumia said.