THE Association of Licensed Recruitment Agencies to Singapore (ALRAS) decided on Friday to stop deploying Filipino household service workers (HSWs) to the island city-state beginning September 2.

In a statement issued Saturday, recruitment consultant Emmanuel Geslani said that ALRAS decided to adopt a self-imposed moratorium on HSW deployment among their 120 member-agencies.

“The general assembly agreed to stop deployment to Singapore starting on September 2 this year in order to stop the malpractices of some rogue members and their Singapore counterparts,” said Geslani quoting ALRAS President Lucy Sermonia.

In the statement, Sermonia explained that some recruitment agencies for Singapore-bound HSWs continue to violate the HSW reform package of “non-collection” of placement fees by collecting placement fees or impose salary deductions on deployed HSWs to Singapore.

She said that while such “malpractices” of their members have already resulted in numerous cancellations or suspensions, they are still inclined to take the drastic measure to strongly prove that they do not tolerate such actions.

“In order to protect the industry, the association agreed that a moratorium be implemented also in order to convince their Singapore counterpart agencies that the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) does not allow the collection of placement fees under the HSW Reform Package of 2007,” pointed Sermonia.

Last February, the Society of Hong Kong Accredited Recruiters of the Philippines Inc. (SHARP) also imposed a similar moratorium on the deployment of domestic workers to Hong Kong also over the issue of collecting placement fees.

The moratorium lasted for only a month after SHARP was able to convince Hong Kong employers to shoulder the placement fee of recruiting Filipino HSWs instead of passing them to the agencies.

With the forthcoming moratorium, Geslani said deployment of HSWs to Singapore is expected to suffer a slowdown in the latter part of the year.

“There is a demand for HSWs since Singapore has a well developed economy with about 1.5 million expatriates working in all fields of the economy,” he said.

Geslani noted how Singapore ranks as the fifth highest destination of HSWs after employing 14,500 in 2012.

ALRAS is expected to present their decision to Department of Labor and Employment Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz next week. (HDT/Sunnex)
http://www.sunstar.com.ph/breaking-n...stopped-293494