“This has brought the total number of Filipino workers of Afras who have been repatriated by the POLO to 36,” a POLO official told Arab News on Friday.
The workers were part of a group of 39 who had earlier absconded and sought help from the POLO. Three more are awaiting repatriation.
Asked about the problems in repatriating the remaining three workers, the POLO official said, “Their iqamas (work permits) have expired. These have to be renewed so that their papers can be processed. Once that is done, exit visas will be issued to them,” he said.
The exit visas will be issued by Afras, which received SR1,000 each from the three workers, as agreed earlier with the POLO.
“We expect the remaining three Filipino workers to leave for the Philippines sometime next week,” the POLO official said.
Asked about their plane tickets, he said these would be provided by recruitment agencies in Manila, AISIS and Al-Ahram, which deployed them in the Kingdom.
The Filipino workers ran away from their employers due to what they claimed were bad working conditions and contract substitution, a practice of replacing contracts signed in the Philippines by recruiters there with new ones that offer lower wages after arriving in the Kingdom. Recruiting agents are supposed to honor the contract signed in the Philippines.
The POLO official thanked the two recruitment agencies in Manila as well as Afras for their cooperation in settling the cases of the 39 workers.
“We called the agencies in Manila to tell them that it's better to settle the cases amicably to avoid being blacklisted in the Philippines. We also talked to their representative in Riyadh,” the official said.
Then, he added, POLO officials approached Afras, which agreed to issue exit visas after its demand that the 39 workers pay SR1,000 each.
