Cultural mismatches between Filipino workers and their Saudi employers are a key driver of abuse against overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) in the Kingdom, a former Philippine ambassador to Saudi Arabia said.
Adnan Alonto, who served as Manila’s envoy to Riyadh from 2017 to 2022, called on recruiters to better prepare prospective workers for the conservative social environment they would encounter, saying that inadequate cultural orientation has left many Filipinos vulnerable to exploitation.
“The culture in Saudi Arabia is different from the Philippines,” Alonto said in an interview over DYTR, adding that recruiters had a responsibility to help workers set realistic expectations before departure.
Alonto, a lawyer based in San Francisco, California, described Saudi Arabia as a destination that offered a “mixed bag” of outcomes for Filipino workers — marked by success stories on one hand and tragic cases on the other.
He noted that the first major obstacle OFWs encounter is the language barrier, as Arabic is the primary medium of communication and English is not widely spoken.
Unfamiliarity with Arab customs and the kingdom’s conservative social norms, he added, frequently led to misunderstandings and conflict.
Domestic Workers
The Philippines began sending workers to Saudi Arabia in the 1970s, when the kingdom’s newly found oil wealth drove demand for foreign professionals — engineers, architects and other skilled workers — to help build the nation, Alonto said.
The situation grew more complicated as the deployment of domestic workers expanded.
Alonto said there are now nearly one million Filipinos in Saudi Arabia, roughly half of them domestic helpers.
“Abuses were not as rampant when the Philippines only sent professionals,” he said, noting that problems became more pronounced as domestic worker deployments increased.
Domestic helpers are particularly vulnerable because they live inside their employers’ homes, exposing them to risks including physical abuse, sexual crimes and wage theft, with some workers going unpaid for extended periods.
Reforms
Alonto credited former President Rodrigo Duterte with pushing Saudi authorities to act, recalling that Duterte had at one point threatened to halt Filipino worker deployments altogether in response to mounting reports of abuse and deaths.
The pressure, he said, prompted Riyadh to introduce labor reforms, particularly around worker mobility.
He was careful to note that not all Arabs share the same conservative outlook, and acknowledged that Saudi Arabia itself was in the process of easing certain social restrictions, particularly those affecting women.
The kingdom’s opening to tourism, he said, was evidence of broader reforms and was exposing Saudis to a wider range of cultures.
Alonto also pointed out that the employment of Filipino domestic workers — known locally as kadama — is considered a status symbol among Saudi families, reflecting both the trust placed in Filipino workers and, paradoxically, the conditions that make them susceptible to abuse.
Alonto urged the Department of Migrant Workers and Philippine diplomats to adopt a more proactive strategy in addressing abuse cases and called on the Department of Foreign Affairs to invest in structured cultural education programmes for workers bound for the Middle East.
“There is a need to have a strategy to deal with the Arabs and to address issues of abuse right away,” he said, adding that equipping workers with knowledge of Middle Eastern customs before departure could prevent many of the misunderstandings that escalate into abuse.