Illegal wedding staff to be deported

DUBAI // A group of 150 Filipina workers caught illegally working part-time at a wedding reception will be sent home for violating the UAE's immigration laws.

"We are co-ordinating with the authorities to ensure that their deportation gets done expeditiously," Benito Valeriano, the Philippine consul general in Dubai, said yesterday.

A team from Dubai's criminal investigation department arrested 160 Filipinas and one Indonesian woman on December 10 for working at the reception in Dubai World Trade Centre. Ten Filipinas who were on their husband's visas have been released. The rest, who had either tourist or visit visas and were not allowed to work in the UAE, were still in detention, he said.

Consulate officials are still waiting for a response to a letter sent to the authorities asking for a list of names and other particulars about the women.

"We have very little information about them," Mr Valeriano said. "But we are appealing to the authorities to repatriate those who were caught at the soonest, so they do not spend a long time in detention."

The women who arrived in the country on tourist or visit visas are expected to have return tickets.

"But if they held bogus return tickets, they would have to find ways to purchase their air tickets to Manila," Mr Valeriano said.

Immigration authorities at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Manila require Filipino passengers flying out of the country to present a valid passport, visa and a return ticket.

However the majority of Filipinos who arrive in the UAE to work using tourist visas often resort to "dummy" return tickets to Manila, according to Nhel Morona, the secretary general of Migrante-UAE, an organisation created to protect Filipinos working overseas. "The return tickets are bogus and these are being issued by travel agents here who arrange their UAE tourist visas," he said.

"The passengers show a return air ticket to immigration so they would be cleared for departure."

Mr Valeriano warned people against attempting to circumvent labour laws in the Philippines. "They will only be subject to abuse and may enter into contracts that are disadvantageous to them."

He said the Philippines had laws in place to protect migrant workers against human trafficking, illegal recruitment and cheap labour.

"These workers should go through the legal process," he said. "Many choose to take shortcuts and this [arrest] could be one of the consequences."