A group of recruitment agencies announced that they are suspending the deployment of Filipino household service workers (HSWs) to Singapore. The Association of Licensed Recruitment Agencies for Singapore (ALRAS) made this decision in an effort to convince force their counterpart agencies in Singapore to implement reforms and to stop charging placement fees.

In a statement, the head of ALRAS, Lucita Sermonia said, “We say no to placement fee collections that are done through deductions from the monthly salaries of the workers.”

She added, “We are telling our counterparts in Singapore about the need to adhere to Philippine laws and rules on overseas employment which prohibit the collection of placement fees from household service workers.”

Sermonia also appealed to other recruiters to support their move by joining their moratorium. She also said that agencies should follow the rules of POEA that exempts HSWs from collecting placement fees.

Meanwhile, the chief of POEA, Hans Cacdac expressed his support to any move that would strengthen the implementation of the household reform package, which states among others that HSWs should not be required to pay placement fee.

Cacdac stressed that any recruitment agency that would not comply with the no placement fee rule would risk cancellation of its license and would not be allowed to send workers abroad.

Sermonia said that many agencies in Singapore still refuse to shoulder the placement fee of HSWs even if employers in Singapore have agreed with the USD400 as minimum monthly wage of Filipinos HSWs since last year.

She said, “Singaporean employers’ compliance shows that they can afford and are willing to pay for the services of HSWs, although collection of fees has remained a problem since many agencies refuse to discard the practice.”

Data from the recruiters showed that majority of the more than 20,000 Filipino workers who were deployed to Singapore in 2012 were HSWs. At present, there are about 150,000 Filipinos that are employed as HSWs in Singapore.