210 Pinoy victims of human trafficking repatriated from Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar — DFA exec

At least 210 Filipino human trafficking victims have been repatriated from some other Southeast Asian countries, Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) Assistant Secretary Paul Cortes said Wednesday.

“So far po nakapagpauwi na po tayo ng 210 na mga kababayan nation from Cambodia, Laos, at Myanmar na naging biktima ng illegal trafficking,” he said at a televised public briefing.

During the recent ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Indonesia, DFA Secretary Enrique Manalo said the group of officials expressed commitment in fighting human trafficking.

Cortes said there should be a regional approach in addressing the issue.

He said authorities in the past months discovered that many Filipinos were offered to work in Thailand as call center agents but they were transported to Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar as a part of a human trafficking scheme.

Cortes also cited the recent rescue in Clark, Pampanga of around 1,000 people of different nationalities who were allegedly forced to work for cyber fraud.

“Kaya sinabi ng ating gobyerno at Pangulo, hindi lang siya domestic issue but it is a regional issue na kailangan nating i-address of course through regional means,” he said.

(That’s why our government and the President said that human trafficking is not only a domestic issue but it is a regional issue that we need to address of course through regional means.)

According to him, ASEAN mechanisms such as the ASEAN Convention Against Trafficking in Persons and ASEAN Declaration on Transnational Crime address the problem. — Joviland Rita/RSJ, GMA Integrated News