BY LESLIE ANN G. AQUINO
The longest staying distressed worker in the government’s half-way home in Kuwait finally went home on Sunday after winning her case against a Kuwaiti policeman who raped her eight years ago, the Department of Employment (DoLE) said.
The Labor department said the OFW named Marites, who stayed at the Migrant Workers and Other Filipino Resource Center for eight years while awaiting the outcome of her case, was repatriated along with 76 wards of the half-way house via Kuwait Airways.
In a statement, DoLE said Marites finally rejoined her family.
According to Labor Attache Nasser Mustafa, Marites was deployed to Kuwait by Zontar Manpower Services Inc. as domestic worker in September 2006 but was later on transferred to work in a dress shop located in Farwaniya.
While her residence visa was still for renewal by her employer, he said, she was caught by a Kuwaiti policeman in September 2012.
Mustafa said instead of bringing her to the police station, she was driven to a dark dessert in South Surra where she was raped inside the police patrol car and was stabbed on the neck and back.
Marites managed to crawl by the roadside where she was found by a passing car and was brought to Mubarak Hospital, he said.
Following two years of court trial, the policeman was sentenced to death in June 2014 by the Court of First Instance. The sentence was eventually commuted to life imprisonment by the Court of Appeals upon the appeal of the policeman’s legal counsel.
Marites was awarded civil damages amounting to P3 million through the representative of the Philippine Embassy and Kuwaiti human rights lawyer Sheika Fawzia Salem Al-Sabah.
DoLE said the civil indemnification was awarded last week.
Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III lauded the efforts of the Philippine Overseas Labor Office and the Philippine embassy in Kuwait for successfully winning the case for Marites and bringing her home.
