Filipina domestic worker executed in Saudi Arabia

A 39-year-old Filipino household worker has been executed in Saudi Arabia after she was found guilty of murder.

Department of Foreign Affairs Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Adnan Alonto on Thursday said the unnamed Filipina was executed on Tuesday for the murder she committed in 2015.

“The Department regrets that it was not able to save the life of the Filipina after the Saudi Supreme Judicial Council classified her case as one in which blood money does not apply under Shariah law,” it said in a statement.

Blood money is a legal mechanism under Sharia law, through which the accused pays a sum to the relatives of the victim.

DFA said it did everything it could to help her. It added her family has requested for privacy.

In a statement released Thursday, Migrante — a group that supports the rights of overseas Filipino workers (OFW) – said they saw the Filipina worker as “another casualty of the Philippine government’s decades-old labor export program.”

The group challenged the Duterte administration to find out what led the OFW to commit the murder, and not just “readily accept with certainty the guilt imputed to the OFW death row victim.”

“As long as the Duterte regime stubbornly clings to its labour export program and refuses to address the roots of forced migration, there will be no end to the cycle of abuse, incarceration and execution besetting stricken OFWs,” they said.

This article originally appeared on: http://cnnphilippines.com/news/2019/01/31/Filipino-domestic-worker-executed-Saudi-Arabia-murder.html