Thursday, April 12, 2007

No Recruiters: Direct Employment in Libya

(The Manila Times, AFP) - The Philippine government is to sign an agreement with Libya to supply health workers to the north African country, the government said Wednesday.

Labor Secretary Arturo Brion said the agreement, to be signed in Libya next week, would allow Filipinos to be hired directly by Libyan health services rather than go through labor recruiters.

At present some 8,000 Filipino nurses, construction workers and engineers work in Libya.

Brion did not say how many additional workers will be sent to Libya and when the program will start.

Five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor were arrested in Libya in 1999, and later sentenced to death after hundreds of children at the Benghazi pediatric hospital where they worked contracted the HIV/AIDS virus.

The six defendants were first sentenced to death in 2004 but the Supreme Court ordered a retrial.

A new death sentence was issued on December 19 last year.

Their death sentence has been reaffirmed despite testimony by international experts that the infection of the children was due to bad hospital hygiene.

About 8 million Filipinos work overseas, many of them in the health field. Last year they sent home $12.8 billion, contributing to a large part of the country's gross domestic product.

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