Stranded Filipinos at Kish Island – hungry, homeless, dying
RP gov’t must address plight of OFWs in “nightmare island”

Kish Island is a nightmare island for stranded Filipinos. They go hungry, homeless and even take their lives due to desperation. Still, the Philippine government refuses to lift a finger to address their plight.

The Asia Pacific Mission for Migrants, a regional migrant centre working in the Asia Pacific and Middle East regions today calls the attention of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to immediately act on the deteriorating condition of Filipinos at Kish Island, the most common exit point for Filipinos who are extending their visa for the nearby United Arab Emirates.

According to reports gathered from interviewed OFWs in UAE who have been there, many Filipinos at the island are stranded and have no proper place to stay or adequate food. Those who have been stranded for months, even years, are only surviving by begging among compatriots and providing part time services to new arrivals in the island.

Reports estimate that around 6,000 Filipinos are now at the island that is within the territorial boundaries of Iran. With the new and more stringent visa policy of UAE that required those extending their visit visa to get a tourist visa instead, it is expected that the number of stranded Filipinos will further rise up.

Morover, not all of migrant workers who go to Kish Island to wait for their new visa can receive their visa renewal on time. Some of them have been abandoned by their prospective employers who are supposed to process the renewal of their visa.

Stranded women migrants, meanwhile, are forced into prostitution in order to survive and some even commit suicide out of desperation. Those interviewed also mentioned of news that said at least one Filipino commits suicide almost every month.

Officials from the Philippine Embassy in Abu Dhabi and the Philippine Consulate in Dubai are very much aware of the condition of Filipinos in Kish Island that has been repeatedly raised by migrants groups such as Migrante-UAE during leaders meetings in the past held in Dubai. Despite the reports, heads of the Philippine mission both in Iran and the UAE do not even lift a finger to address this.

The long-running inaction of the Philippine government on the concern of Filipinos in Kish Island is but one of the many cases of neglect of the GMA administration to their nationals abroad that make its hosting of the Second Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) even more hypocritical. How can she be proud of her administration hosting the GFMD if thousands of her people are stranded, starving, forced into prostitution in order to survive and even commit suicide?

APMM demands for GMA and her government to immediately dispatch rescue mission to Kish Island and provide stranded migrants with free travel documents and attend to their medical needs. Those who wish to return to the Philippines must be also repatriated immediately.