MANILA, Philippines – Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III on Friday, September 2, sought a Senate inquiry into the death of an overseas Filipino worker who was allegedly sexually abused by her employer in Saudi Arabia.
Pimentel filed Senate Resolution No 114, directing the committees on foreign relations and labor, employment, and human resources to probe the death of Avila Edloy.
The tragic death of Edloy, Pimentel said, “reminds us time and again of the risk to life and limbs faced by our OFWs, especially female OFWs employed as domestic workers.”
In seeking a congressional probe, Pimentel said there is an “urgent need” to determine if the state has appropriate policies to provide “safe and healthful working conditions” for women, as mandated by the 1987 Constitution.
“It is arguably a necessary requisite to provide ‘full protection to labor, local and overseas,’ especially for female OFWs,” said Pimentel.
“Edloy’s death must not simply add to the statistics of OFWs whose lives were lost at the hands of abusive employers,” he added.
Edloy is the latest OFW to suffer such a fate. In October 2015, a 25 year-old Filipina worker in Saudi Arabia died after allegedly being physically abused and raped by her employer, according to migrants' rights group Migrante-Middle East.
According to Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III, Edloy, 35, arrived in Saudi Arabia on July 28 this year as a recruit of Rejoice Employment International Corporation for her principal employer, Al Sayyar Recruitment in Ridyadh.
But barely a month after, Edloy was rushed to the King Salman Hospital after sustaining severe injuries from alleged sexual assault.
Medical reports revealed that she suffered from lacerations in her private parts, along with multiple bruises on her face and body.
Before her death on August 18, Bello said Edloy was able to point at her employer when asked who maltreated her. – Rappler.com