Image via WikipediaMANILA, Philippines—The National Bureau of Investigation on Friday rescued 33 women, mostly minors, who were allegedly recruited by a syndicate to work as domestic helpers in the Middle East.
Head Agent Dante Bonoan, chief of the NBI’s Anti-Human Trafficking Division, said the victims were collected from two townhouses during simultaneous operations in Las Piñas City around 8 a.m.
Speaking with reporters at the NBI headquarters in Manila, he said the houses served as “holding areas” for the unsuspecting victims of a human trafficking syndicate.
“Apparently, they were being held there before their eventual deployment abroad,” Bonoan said in a news briefing.
According to Bonoan, a person who supposedly recruited the victims from Visayas and Mindanao provinces was arrested from one of the houses.
The NBI official declined to identify the victims and the arrested suspect in deference to the provision of Republic Act 9208, or the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2003.
Prosecutor Ramoncito Ocampo, operations officer of the Interagency Council Against Trafficking, said IACAT operatives at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 1 accosted a female passenger as she was about to board a Kuwait-bound airline on Aug. 11.
During questioning, Ocampo said the passenger, who was barely in her teens, admitted that she was supposed to work as a domestic helper in Kuwait.
Four days later, the prosecutor said another underage female passenger was also prevented by IACAT personnel at the NAIA from leaving for Kuwait.
“We asked the NBI’s help after the two girls told us that they were with other minors. They also helped us pinpoint the holding areas where they were being kept,” Ocampo said.
Bonoan said the NBI would look into the possibility that unscrupulous personnel of the Department of Foreign Affairs had colluded with the syndicate after noticing that the victims’ passports “appeared authentic.”
“The victims were able to acquire their passports under assumed identity,” he said.
The arrested person was taken to the NBI jail after being charged with violation of RA 9208, Bonoan said.
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