This Filipino woman claims she was exploited by her former employers.

A Filipino woman on minimum wage is claiming to have racked up close to 1,000 hours in unpaid overtime during the 13-month period she worked as a nanny.

The woman told The Sunday Times of Malta she accumulated €6,200 in unpaid overtime when working for a family between May 2013 and July 2014 as a full-time, live-in nanny.

She claims that despite an agreement saying she was meant to be a “live-in” nanny, she had to live elsewhere, thereby incurring additional food and accommodation costs.

“I was paid a gross salary of €718 per month. Some €300 of that went towards living expenses. I was left with little in hand – and I had to send the money to my family.”

Figures released last year by the Employment Ministry show that some 946 Filipinos in Malta hold work permits, including 750 women who were often employed as care workers and housekeepers.

Trade unions have often spoken about Filipinos whose employers made them work long hours without being granted leave entitlement and with salaries below minimum wage. However, such people were afraid to speak up for fear of losing their work permit and, therefore, their right to be in Malta.

Maybe this will serve as an eye-opener for other Filipino women who have been taken advantage of

The woman said she knows of other nannies who prefer to remain silent.

“I think I may be the first to talk about this,” she said, adding that she decided to speak out thanks to the support of her current elderly employer, for whom she works as a live-in carer.

“Maybe this will serve as an eye-opener for other Filipino women who have been taken advantage of by their employers.”

Asked why exploited Filipino women chose to remain silent and unquestioningly accept their working conditions, the woman said it was a mixture of not being used to being assertive, coupled with a consuming fear of being rendered jobless.

Filipino women are often unaware of their rights. The woman, for example, said she was not initially aware that she was only meant to be working 40 hours per week.

She came to Malta a few years ago as a qualified caregiver. Separated from her husband, she has five children back in the Philippines, aged between four and 20. “My job is very important to me because I send the money I earn back home to pay for my children’s education. I also support my parents with their medication,” she said.

Her first job in Malta was to care for an elderly woman. In a glowing reference letter from the elderly woman’s son, the Filipino woman is described as performing her duties with the “dedication and skill well above the call of duty and with a level of competency far superior than one would expect”.

Following the elderly woman’s demise, the Filipino woman applied for work as a nanny for a family with two young children.

Despite telling the Department of Citizenship and Expatriate Affairs that they were employing a “full-time, live-in nanny”, it is claimed that the family told the Filipino woman that they could not provide accommodation.

As a result, she lived in an apartment with three other Filipinos, paying for food, rent and utility bills.

The woman said she worked an average of 60 hours per week – although there were times she would work significantly less.

Despite feeling overworked, she decided to stick through a year of employment, fearing she could become unemployable if she left earlier.

When she did eventually resign, she claims the family initially refused to hand her termination and reference letters.

Audacity to lie so blatantly when she knows only too well that (she was treated like) a family member

“I felt very anxious – they didn’t want to release me but I had already said yes to my new employer.”

The Filipino woman, who was briefly admitted to hospital suffering from a panic attack, also claimed that she was not paid in full and felt pressured into signing a letter to the contrary before receiving the documentation she required.

“When she showed me the letter, I wasn’t in a proper state of mind. While I was reading it, she angrily told me: ‘Don’t you want to sign it?’ I felt harassed and pressured.”

After the Filipino woman engaged a lawyer, the family strenuously denied her claims, saying she had the “audacity to lie so blatantly when she knows only too well that (she was treated like) a family member”.

The family said the woman was making “false and abusive claims solely aimed at extorting money”.