The government is to send a delegation to Iraq next week to evaluate whether to lift a ban on Filipinos working there, a labor Department official said yesterday.

The mission would include members of the Labor and Foreign Affairs Departments, said Jennifer Manalili, administrator of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration.

President Arroyo banned the deployment of Filipino workers to Iraq in 2004 after a Filipino truck driver was kidnapped and threatened with beheading.

The driver was later released unharmed after Mrs. Arroyo withdrew the country?s small contingent of troops and police.

Despite the ban, an estimated 10,000 Filipinos work in Iraq.

An official Iraqi delegation was in Manila recently and called on the government to lift its ban, saying the country needed foreign workers to help it rebuild. AFP