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DFA tells Pinoys: Beware of non-existent jobs in Iran, don't risk prosecution
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Jul 4, 2009 - 11:08:22 AM

By Gloria Jane Baylon

MANILA, July 5 (PNA) -- Filipinos are warned against entering Iran on false employment promises and risk prosecution and heavy fines, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) has said in a public advisory.

”The Department of Foreign Affairs wishes to inform the public that the Islamic Republic of Iran does not accept foreign household service workers from any country,” said the advisory, following reports of Filipino women getting stranded in Iran.

The DFA reiterated that the Islamic country, which is currently undergoing civil unrest due to unresolved issues around its recent presidential elections, does not recruit foreign domestics.

”Since the Iranian government does not allow foreign domestic helpers, no permit will be issued and the recruit will end up as an illegal worker.” Fines equivalent to USD30 for each day of overstay of a tourist visa is slapped on the unsuspecting recruit.

Apparently, the Filipino recruits enter Iran via Dubai, its neighbor in the United Arab Emirates, using tourist visas, made to believe that these can be processed into work permits upon their arrival in Iran, DFA said of the modus operandi of illegal recruitment.

In mid-June, Iran’s ambassador to Manila, Ali Mojitaba Rouzbehani, told the Philippines News Agency that his country is not ready to recruit Filipino workers.

Rouzbehani noted that as it is, Iran has problems of its own in dealing with millions of refugee workers on its borders with Afghanistan and Pakistan.

According to the DFA, the Philippine Embassy in Tehran has reports of “Filipino women who are now stranded and facing cases of illegal employment in Iran,” but it did not indicate the number and how they are being assisted.

”Filipinos are being victimized by Iranian employers or unscrupulous recruiting agents promising employment in Iran as foreign household service workers,” DFA said.

The situation is related to recruits for the Middle East.

Until the United Arab Emirates made stringent its work visa requirements to Dubai and other UAE areas, Filipinos used to have their tourist visas moved up as work permits to the UAE in the Iranian island of Kish.

Until such time that they receive the labor visas, the recruits while their time away in the island made infamous among uninformed Filipinos as a "work-processing center" to Iran and the Middle East.

About 2,000 such Filipinos at one time were unable to secure permits, stranding themselves in the island, many of them reduced to being beggars, according to authoritative sources. (PNA)