MikeLigalig.com

By Ven Arigo
Bohol Chronicle

Raped overseas Filipina worker Nelle (not her real name) needs an expert translator of some Arabic documents which she managed to bring home. This may lead her to justice.

The 30-year-old domestic helper had been jailed in the Arab land despite her being the victim. She won in a lower Arab court but was told months after that the decision was reversed by the Court of Appeals there.

She was not given a copy of the alleged verdict reversing the previous ruling against her influential abuser.

Nelle secured the only papers in her possession now when her case was decided by the lower court.

Rep. Edgar Chatto, who helped the OFW, immediately contacted the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) to interpret for Nelle the Arabic contents of the legal documents.

Accompanied by her sister, Nelle visited the congressman and thanked him at his house here on Thursday after arriving in Tagbilaran City a day earlier.

Chatto had tirelessly kept contact with Ambassador Endaya and networked with other key Philippine Embassy men in Kuwait as well as the overseas workers welfare officers in the country for them to do all until she could safely return home.

Nelle mentioned of "claims" which could be an order-entry among the contents of the court documents she has but were never awarded to her.

MISFORTUNE

Nelle met her rapist while she was looking for a "sponsor-employer" who could grant her a "transfer visa" after she left her original employer whose wife is a fatally jealous type.

The maid decided to find another job because her female employer, who had violent tendencies, would often threaten her.

She borrowed money from some of her OFW friends in Kuwait to pay the "unexpired term" of her contract with her first employer.

Nelle was referred to a military official as her sponsor-employer but who later turned out to be most cruel.

The military official got her passport and civil ID while assuring to issue her with corresponding fee, a transfer employer visa that would actually serve as her permit from her supposed "new employer" to work outside as a part-timer.

She would not actually work for the military officer as her real employer.

While the Arab was home, the military official contacted and instructed the OFW to go to her house and get her passport and visa.

While they were talking on phone Nelle heard voices she thought could be members of the military man's family.

But when she got inside, he suddenly locked her inside with him. That was on December 31, 2006.

Drunk, the military official forced her to drink but she refused and insisted to get her visa and passport as assured.

The Arab demanded that she should be her mistress in exchange of her visa and passport.

Nelle was surprised that they were alone inside the residence when she heard other voices in their phone talk earlier.

On the following day, New Year's Day 2007, the military official raped her in the living room.

A medico-legal examination found her positive of being raped.

RULING REVERSED?

Months later, Nelle was told by her hearing officer, who is a Filipino connected with the Philippine embassy, and her Arab lawyer that the decision was reversed by the Court of Appeals and that a motion supposedly from her had been consequently filed at the Supreme Court.

Nelle told Chatto how she could have formally asked the highest tribunal to reconsider the appellate court's reversal ruling when she had not even given a copy of the alleged verdict.

She was further told that "she was defeated in the Court of Appeals because she was only after of the money of the accused."

Meanwhile, the OFW worked as a saloon helper to sustain her stay while under the embassy's custody.

The embassy had her sign, however, an affidavit of voluntary exit as waiver before she was allowed to get outside and work to send money to her children back home.

COUNTER-CHARGED

The OFW thought she could finally return home but was instead detained by the CID, Kuwait's version of NBI, because she was countercharged by her "transfer visa sponsor-employer" for absconding or running away.

In Bohol, her sisters heard of Chatto's cause for the OFWs so that they asked assistance from the congressman to workout Nelle's repatriation.

Nelle was transferred to a jail where she met fellow OFWs Marilou Ranario and May Vecina, both sentenced for execution. Vecina was reported in national televisions here Friday night to have been pardoned by the Kuwaiti king after long intervention of Pres. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

THE RETURN

While in jail, Nelle was discouraged from pursuing her case against her rapist when she learned that her hearing officer provided by the embassy had gone back to the Philippines. The latter's work contract with the government had reportedly expired.

Nelle lost hope as she languished behind bars, but not until the Arab authorities last week released her, with six other Filipina migrant workers, and directly transported them to the airport to board a Kuwaiti Airways flight all the way to Manila.

She had kept some clothes and gave them to her fellow freed OFWs who were still wearing prison uniform even at the airport.

Nelle said she had not seen Chatto until her return here.

The solon's staff in Congress met here at the Manila airport brought her to the house of the Chatto's in Quezon City to rest while waiting for her trip back to Bohol.

The married OFW is slated to proceed to Mindanao where her three kids await her. Her children stay with their grandparents. Nelle's all four sisters are in Bohol.

Nelle had decided to find job in Kuwait to raise and educate her kids back home after her husband left them.

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