As part of the commemoration of this year’s World Day Against Trafficking, which was on July 30, The Philippine Embassy in Bahrain reminds everyone once again to help stop human trafficking by reporting it to the authorities.
The Embassy encourages all Filipinos in Bahrain to be vigilant about this heinous crime, and help end it by reporting to Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking (IACAT)’s 1343 Actionline service.
Cases of human trafficking that the Embassy specifically wants to highlight include those involving Online Sexual Exploitation of Children (OSEC), as well as sex trafficking.
In addition, as part of the efforts of IACAT to raise awareness about this crime, two videos were launched on Wednesday at the SM Mall of Asia IMAX Cinema that showed the reality of OSEC in the Philippines. Its message conveys that humans, especially children, are not to be treated as commodities.
Philippine Ambassador to Bahrain Alfonso A. Ver recently commended the kingdom for its commendable efforts against human trafficking. He congratulated Bahrain once again for attaining Tier 1 status in the US Department of State classification of States in Combating Trafficking in Persons. The TIP report is an analysis that divides nations into tiers based on their compliance with standards outlined in the US Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) of 2000. Countries with Tier 1 status are those whose governments fully comply with the TVPA’s minimum standards.
Bahrain has achieved the same status for the second consecutive year, and it is the first country in the Middle East and North Africa to achieve it.
Among the expats living in Bahrain, around 50,000 of them are Filipinos.
