“Many of us have been staying at the SSWA shelter for quite a long time now and we don’t even know the status of our cases. We want to be updated on our cases,” a representative of the group told Arab News on Tuesday after being assured her name would not be published.

She added they had learned that many other housemaids who had also absconded from their jobs in the Kingdom had been sent home, including most recently the 29 imprisoned Filipino inmates in the women’s Al-Nisa prison in Riyadh who fell under a royal amnesty for people serving time for non-violent petty crimes.

Most of them used to work as housemaids but absconded for various reasons such as contract substitution, maltreatment, delayed or non-payment of salaries, among others. Filipino workers are particularly subjected to contract substitution because they must sign contracts back home that comply with Philippines’ minimum wage requirements (equivalent $400 a month in the host country’s currency). Upon arrival, these workers are given new contracts offering lower salaries.

Ron Lionel M. Bartolome, welfare officer at the Philippine Overseas Labor Office at the Eastern Region (POLO-ERO), admitted to Arab News on Tuesday that there are 52 housemaids currently staying at the SSWA shelter.

Bartolome explained that the housemaids, some of whom had run away from their sponsors in Riyadh and Jeddah and went to work illegally for families in the Eastern Province, think that they are included in the Saudi amnesty program.

“They don’t know that only those who had come to the Kingdom as visitors or to perform Umrah or Haj and who had overstayed their visas are eligible for the amnesty which had been extended until Sept. 14,” he said.

Bartolome explained that what delayed the processing of their papers is the fact that many of them had absconded for five or more years and that the SSWA had difficulty locating their former employers for the issuance of exit visas.

Earlier, the Filipino women sought the help of Migrante-Middle East regional coordinator John Leonard Monterona who also referred their cases to POLO-ERO.