Illegal recruiters
THE dollar-oriented overseas employment program is supposed to address the nation’s joblessness and underemployment problems.
However, it is certainly saddening and frustrating that some of our female migrant workers ended up as sex workers and even jailed abroad.
More often than not, these jobseekers, many of them from the countryside, are victimized by sweet-talking local and foreign illegal recruiters.
This despite the fact that the government, through concerned offices and agencies, has been going after these illegal recruiters for decades now.
A 20-year-old Filipina returned home last Wednesday from Malaysia, where she was forced to work as a prostitute and jailed by the authorities.
The victim, who was recruited as a househelp, told the Bureau of Immigration that she was subjected to harrowing conditions in Malaysia.
She was reportedly transferred from one brothel to another until she was arrested by lawmen who raided the hotel where she was working.
The Filipina was jailed but the Malaysian government allowed her to seek the help of the Philippine Embassy which facilitated her repatriation.
We, thus. commend the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking (IACAT) for its determination to go after the victim’s recruiters.
It’s time to identify, arrest and charge in court all these recruiters, who continue to victimize our jobseekers, including professionals.
