The government’s efforts to combat human trafficking have blocked 43,233 Filipinos from leaving the country in 2016, the Bureau of Immigration (BI) said.
According to Marc Red Mariñas, port operations division chief at BI, the offloaded passengers failed to comply with existing requirements for departing Filipinos, which prove that they are legitimate tourists and not prospective migrant workers.
BI said 502 of the passengers were suspected to be trafficking victims and were turned over to the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking.
The bureau also forwarded 433 cases to the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration.
Immigration Commissioner Jaime Morente said authorities remain firm in screening outbound Filipino travelers to avoid human trafficking and illegal recruitment cases.
“We will not relax our guard so long as many of our countrymen are being lured by these syndicates to illegally travel abroad by taking advantage of their poverty,” Morente said in a statement.
A report by the US State Department said the Philippine government’s efforts to wipe out human trafficking remained on “Tier 1”, the grade given to countries that “fully [meet] the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking.
“[Philippines] demonstrated serious and sustained efforts by convicting and punishing more traffickers, identifying more victims through proactive screening procedures, and expanding its efforts to prevent trafficking of Filipino migrant workers,” the report reads.
Photo Credits: Patrick Roque via Wikipedia
