Another Filipina worker killed in Kuwait

The Philippine Embassy in Kuwait has confirmed that the decomposing body of a woman found over a week ago on the roof of a building in that small, oil-rich Middle Eastern country was that of a Filipina worker. Vice Consul Rea Oreta said, in a phone interview Sunday with GMANews.TV, that the victim was identified based on her passport as Jenny Dechosa, 33, from Misamis Oriental. “(Kuwait’s) Criminal Investigation Division (CID) has just confirmed to us that the victim was indeed a Filipina, and her case is now under investigation," Oreta said. According to her, the CID likewise told the Embassy that an Egyptian national has been arrested in connection to the crime and is now detained at the Bayan Police Station. Oreta said the CID has refused to release more information on Dechosa’s case as it is considered “confidential," but reports state the suspect was the victim’s lover. “Right now we are requesting the help of the OUMWA (Office of the Undersecretary for Migrant Workers Affairs) to locate the family of Dechosa because all we have is her passport," Oreta said. Missing since Oct. 10 A report by the Kuwait-based Arab Times said Dechosa’s body was found by police authorities on October 16 in between air-conditioning units on the roof of Hall No. 5 at the Kuwait International Fair grounds in Mishref. According to the report, Dechosa was working in a saloon in Salmiya and does part-time work as a house cleaner. Quoting Dechosa’s housemates, the report said the victim left their house on October 10, her rest day, for a part-time cleaning job in Mishref. She, however, reportedly backed out of the job as the house was too big and instead asked the taxi driver to drop her off a shopping mall where she was supposedly meeting someone. Dechosa was unable to go home that day, and six days after she was reported missing, a body of a woman in a state of decomposition was found in Mishref. On the same day, her employer and housemates confirmed that the body was indeed Dechosa’s through fingerprinting and other pieces of evidence, even as her face was reportedly unrecognizable as it seemed to have been smashed with a hard object, the Arab Times report said. A separate report on Arab Times on Saturday identified the suspect as the Egyptian caretaker of the building where Dechosa’s body was discovered. The report said the suspect was identified based on the victim’s mobile phone records. The suspect reportedly confessed he had an affair with Dechosa, and admitted killing her by hitting her with a metal rod on her head. The motive for the killing, however, remains unclear. According to Vice Consul Oreta, Dechosa’s remains may take at least a month to be repatriated, or as soon as the CID and the local prosecutor finish their investigation. OFW-friendly? The killing of Dechosa came three months after two other Filipinas were brutally killed in separate incidents in Kuwait, which has been identified by the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs as one of the countries where the rights and welfare of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) are protected. In July, a Filipina worker was tortured to death by her employer and then left in the desert, while another was stabbed dead at least 31 times by her Egyptian husband allegedly in a fit of jealousy. Government agencies have likewise repatriated Filipino workers from Kuwait by the hundreds in the last few months, majority of them household service workers who ran away from their sponsors for various reasons, such as labor contract violations and physical abuse, or are overstaying in the country. Oreta declined to comment if Kuwait’s classification as a safe country for migrant workers will be reviewed in light of the recent string of killings and abuses of Filipino laborers in the Middle East country. Kuwait ranks sixth in the top ten destinations of OFWs in 2009, with some 45,900 Filipino workers deployed there on the same year, according to the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration. Records from the Commission on Filipinos Overseas meanwhile show there are over 140,000 Filipinos in Kuwait as of 2008, only 500 of whom are considered permanent residents. – DM/KBK, GMANews.TV