DFA Brings Home 87 Filipinos from UAE During 1st Week of Enhanced Community Quarantine

20 March 2020 – For three consecutive days this week, the Department of Foreign Affairs brought home from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) 83 Filipino women and four children, amid the ongoing enhanced community quarantine in Luzon.

Repatriation started last Wednesday, 18 March 2020 when the DFA, through the Philippine Embassy in Abu Dhabi and the Philippine Consulate General in Dubai, brought home 55 Filipinos. Most of them are trafficked persons who entered the UAE through visit visas in the hope of finding work.

The following day, 19 March 2020, another 12 Filipino women and four children, were brought home by the DFA. They were detainees in a correctional facility in Dubai for allegedly working without valid employment permits and for supposedly violating immorality laws in the UAE.

Today, 16 Filipino women who lost possession of their passports, were also repatriated from Dubai. These women sought refuge at the Philippine Consulate General after their employers illegally held on to their passports. In response, the Philippine Consulate General issued them travel documents so that they can return home.

On all three days, the DFA’s Office of the Undersecretary for Migrant Workers’ Affairs (OUMWA) together with representatives from the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DWSD), the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking (IACAT), the Overseas Workers Welfare Association (OWWA), and the Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA) provided assistance to the repatriates upon their arrival.

The repatriation of these 87 women and children is a part of the DFA’s commitment to bring home Filipinos who want to come home amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. END