5 Filipino victims of human trafficking rescued

Web Report, May 16, 2019

The human trafficking victims are lured into prostitution or are enslaved and given salaries far below industry standards.

In two separate incidents of human trafficking, five Filipino women, bound for Malaysia and the UAE, were intercepted at Clark International Airport in the Philippines.

According to a report in Inquirer.Net, the women were flying out of the country on May 8, pretending to be tourists, when they were questioned by authorities, the Bureau of Immigration (BI) said Wednesday.

“These women have been victimized by unscrupulous human trafficking syndicates that prey on the poor,” BI port operations division chief, Grifton Medina, said in a statement.

The three women who were heading to Malaysia revealed they were offered work in Kota Kinabalu as nightclub entertainers through a job offer they received online and that their documents were to be given to them in Hong Kong. The women added they paid up to php10,000 to someone called “Danilo” whom they met at a mall in Quezon City.

While the two women who booked tickets to the UAE, had fake visas and admitted to have been offered jobs in Beirut but were instructed not to reveal their true destination, the BI said.

Medina added that human trafficking victims are lured into prostitution or are enslaved and given salaries far below industry standards. “Illegal recruiters will put their victims in a tight spot. The victims, knowing that they entered through illegal means, would be forced to agree to the unfair work conditions given to them and would even be asked to pay via salary deduction hefty sums for their recruitment,” Medina was quoted as saying in Inquirer.Net.

Following the incident, BI commissioner, Jaime Morente, has asked authorities stationed at ports outside Manila to be on alert. The five victims were turned over to the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking (IACAT) for further investigation and assistance.