Kuwait asks Philippines ambassador to leave

Kuwait : Kuwait yesterday ordered the Philippines ambassador to leave within a week and recalled its own envoy for consultations after embassy staff tried to “rescue” Filipino domestic workers amid reports of abuse.

In a statement issued, Kuwaiti Foreign Ministry said that it had notified the Philippine Ambassador Renato Villa that he is persona non-grata in the country asking him to return home in a week.

The decision, Kuwaiti Ministry said, was in retaliation for undiplomatic acts by Philippine embassy staff, encouraging Filipino domestic workers to flee employers’ households.

The official statement renewed its utter rejection and condemnation of the Philippine embassy’s “flagrant and grave breach of rules and regulations that govern diplomatic action, where staff helped Filipina house helpers run away.” 

The ministry termed such illegal acts as blatant violation of the State of Kuwait law, international covenants and charters, tantamount to intervention in the state domestic affairs and meddling in jurisdictions of the security apparatuses.

The Kuwaiti Foreign Ministry statement noted that the foreign ministry of the Asian nation dispatched “reinforcements to the embassy in Kuwait; comprised of seven teams affiliated with the foreign undersecretary for labour in immigration at the pretext of rescuing female housemaids in Kuwait.”

These acts had prompted the ministry to summon the Philippine ambassador twice. “However this duration has passed without any response from the embassy,” the statement reads. 

The decision was the latest episode in a three-month crisis sparked by reports that abuse by employers in the wealthy Gulf Arab state had driven several Filipinos to suicide.

The Philippines had apologized on Tuesday for what Kuwait viewed as a “flagrant” violation of its sovereignty, with the Philippine foreign secretary saying the embassy was forced to “assist” Filipino workers who sought help as some situations were a matter of life and death.

Kuwait’s foreign ministry said it had given the ambassador three days to provide the names of Filipino residents in Kuwait who had “kidnapped” domestic workers from their employers’ homes, adding it had yet to receive a response from the embassy.

Kuwaiti security forces “will continue to chase down those who violated the security of the country” and put them on trial, the ministry added in a statement.

Domestic helpers account for more than 65 percent of the more than 260,000 Filipinos in Kuwait, according to the Philippines’ foreign secretary.

Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte in February called on Filipino workers in Kuwait to return home after the discovery of a domestic worker’s body in a freezer in an abandoned home. He said then that a list of both reported and unreported cases of mistreatment of Filipino migrant workers would be prepared.