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Article

7 Jun 2023

Author:
Michael Beltran, Rappler (The Philippines)

Part 1: How Filipinos landed in Belgium’s biggest trafficking scandal

See all tags Allegations

In July 2022, Belgian police discovered 174 illegally employed workers at a factory owned by Borealis, an Austrian multinational and chemical manufacturer. Most of the workers were Turkish and Bangladeshi, 65 were Filipino…

…the Filipinos were severely underpaid, earning €8.50 (P512) an hour…

… The company denies any wrongdoing and blames the Italian manpower agency and subcontractor IREM group…

…the Filipinos were recruited to work in Belgium by IREM and another subcontractor, Raj Bhar Engineering…

…The workers, owed months of back-pay for the legally-mandated wages of around €8500 (P517,556), are at risk of being forgotten…

When asked who his previous employers were, he pointed to the printed logo on the jacket – it said Daeshin Construction plant…

A mere US$2.7 (P149) an hour on 10-hour shifts was not the income he hoped for, especially after paying an P80,000 placement fee to recruitment agency VFG International…

Many of the workers were recruited through Raj Bhar Engineering…On its website, the company lists IREM SPA and two other IREM group subsidiaries as partners.

The Filipino and Bangladeshi workers point to the IREM group as the main culprit…

A month after the Borealis scandal…police discovered 58 Filipino workers illegally employed by German chemical producer BASF…

Timeline

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