MANILA, Philippines—An alliance of overseas Filipino workers in the Middle East said on Thursday its contacts were helping verify reports that a Filipino woman was publicly lynched in Jordan for apparently committing adultery.
Migrante-Middle East said that the woman shown in a video clip posted in the video-hosting site YouTube that has now spread over the Internet could be an OFW.
“There is great possibility that the woman stoned to death in Jordan is an OFW as there are numerous reported cases of abuses and maltreatment we are receiving from concerned fellow OFWs in Jordan,” said Migrante-ME regional coordinator John Leonard Monterona said in statement from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where he is based.
Monterona added Migrante-ME has been in touch with some OFWs in Jordan so that they could get information about the video clip and get confirmation if the victim was really an OFW, as claimed by the one who posted the video.
In January 2008, the Philippine government stopped the deployment of newly hired OFWs to Jordan following reports of maltreatment and other labor-related abuses in the Middle Eastern kingdom.
Monterona claimed the ban has not stopped undocumented OFWs from slipping into Jordan.
The number of OFWs, mostly domestics, who escaped from abusive employers has risen to such levels that even foreign and labor departments were having a difficult time sending them back home.
Monterona said more than 200 distressed OFWs have been seeking refuge at the Filipino Workers Resource Center run by the Philippine embassy in Amman, Jordan.
Some have been staying at the center for more than six months without work, unable to leave because their employers filed cases against them or had confiscated their passports.
“Many of the stranded OFWs are desperately waiting for their repatriation; the longer their stay at the FWRC, the more that they are sway to commit acts leading to their own detriment out of their desperation,” Monterona said.
The Department of Foreign Affairs in Manila, through spokesman Assistant Secretary Ed Malaya, said the Philippine embassy in Jordan was not aware of any stoning or beating up of a Filipino woman.
“The embassy is not aware of, nor has received, any confirmed report regarding the alleged stoning video. We urge circumspection at this time, as the footage may not be factual and authentic. The embassy will continue to further look into the matter,” he said.
Jordan’s record in human rights, particularly those pertaining to migrants, has been a matter of concern for international groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
The Jordanian government, however, has been implementing a series of human rights reforms that were recognized by the United Nations Human Rights Council in a review conducted last February.
The stoning of women found to have committed adultery is allowed in countries enforcing stringent Islamic morality laws.