Save Marilou Ranario

Please take a moment of your time to sign the online petition addressed to the Kuwaiti Emir to pardon Marilou Ranario. She has been sentenced to death for the murder of her employer in 2005. Court hearings are currently ongoing and a final decision is expected by January or February next year.

From Bulatlat, some of the abuses Filipinas must suffer to provide for their families back home:

As a domestic worker, Rosebelle used to work from 4 a.m. up to 2 a.m. everyday. She barely had two hours of sleep daily, and had no day off. “Bawal umupo, tuluy-tuloy ang trabaho,” (I was not allowed to even sit down. I had to work continuously.) complained Rosebelle, adding that there was also not enough food to give her overworked body the strength for the whole day. She said she was allowed to eat only at 3 p.m., if there is left-over food. She said she survived on the biscuits that she brought from the Philippines otherwise she could have died of starvation.

In only a year in Kuwait, Angel, not her real name, had four employers.

Though she did not experience being beaten up in her 11 months of working with her first employer did not mean that she was treated any better, she said. Instead of giving her the left-over food, she said, her employer would take them all to their room upstairs. The left-over food would be left to spoil up to the next day, she said regretfully. She was not given any food and was also not allowed to go to the grocery to buy for her personal needs.

She was also prohibited to have a cellular phone. It was a problem for her because she had no means to inform her parents that she had remitted money or about her conditions there.

Because of these, she had an unpleasant relationship with her employer. She was sold to other employers. With her second employer, she was the only one doing the chores in a big house, plus taking care of the five children. Despite the workload, she was not fed at all.