Senate OKs on 3rd reading bill strengthening anti-trafficking law

The Senate on Monday approved on third and final reading a bill which seeks to strengthen the country's laws against human trafficking.

With 23 votes, without opposition or abstention,  the upper chamber passed Senate Bill 2449 which amends Republic Act 9208 as amended by R.A. 10363 or the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act.

SB 2449 seeks to provide law enforcers additional tools to catch human traffickers, particularly in the use of digital or internal platforms.

It also contains provisions which will impose accountability against internet intermediaries for knowingly allowing their infrastructure to be used for acts of trafficking of victims.

These platforms include social media networks and financial and e-commerce intermediaries.

The bill also seeks to address human trafficking by prohibiting the tampering of passports, birth certificates, and travel clearances, increasing protections to trafficking victims, including Filipinos abroad.

Senate committee on women, children, family relations, and gender equality chairperson Senator Risa Hontiveros said the proposed law is intended to help Filipinos who are victims of trafficking abroad, in the offshore gaming industry, and underground online groups.

She earlier said that SB 2449 introduces as an additional aggravating circumstance when the crime is committed amid a a crisis, a public health concern, such as a pandemic, a disaster, a humanitarian conflict or emergency situation, or when the trafficked person is a survivor of the same.

The measure would also mandate the local government units to provide recovery and reintegration support to trafficked persons and their families.

Hontiveros said this would be in line with the planned devolution of anti-trafficking measures from the Department of Social Welfare and Development to LGUs.—AOL, GMA News