MIGRANT Workers Secretary Susan Ople vowed to intensify efforts in the fight against human trafficking in partnership with the Department of Justice (DoJ) and other government agencies during the meeting of the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking (IACAT) held in Malacanang Palace Monday.

Ople reported to President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr., who presided over the IACAT meeting, that the Department of Migrant Workers (DMW) has been assisting victims of crypto-currency syndicates in filing of human trafficking cases.

“Eleven cases of trafficking-in-persons have already been filed with four more cases set for filing in the next two weeks,” Ople said.

She also mentioned that one of the accused in the crypto-currency scam that victimized OFWs in Cambodia was arrested last March 7 in San Fernando, Pampanga.

The DMW is also monitoring reports of human trafficking of OFWs in Poland to other parts of Europe with the workers being subjected to long hours of work, low wages, and unsafe work conditions.

“The DMW continues to provide food and other forms of assistance to 39 Filipino workers who were brought to Belgium by a manpower company based in Poland. These workers were recently granted temporary work permits by the Belgian government pending the resolution of their case,” Ople said.

She said that the DoJ is willing to assist victims of human trafficking from abroad who are determined to pursue criminal cases through the Witness Protection Program. “I spoke with Justice Secretary Crispin Remulla after the IACAT meeting and he welcomed such a collaboration of efforts with the DMW.”

In her speech Tuesday before foreign and local delegates attending the 5th Meeting of the Colombo Process Thematic Area Working Group (TAWG), the Secretary said that President Marcos Jr. has directed the DMW to intensify its awareness campaign to prevent more aspiring OFWs from becoming victims of crypto-currency scam syndicates in Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar.

“The illegal recruitment is done online and so we need to use social media more effectively to expose these syndicates,” Ople said. The DMW will be working closely with the Presidential Communications Office (PCO), the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) and other government offices such as the Department of Justice and IACAT for a more intensified education and awareness campaign.

“If our workers leave unprepared, unaware of their rights and not even realizing how life-changing a decision it is to work abroad, then the probability of landing in unsafe, high-risk environments becomes sky-high. We reiterate our call to aspiring OFWs to go through the legal process rather than entrusting their lives and safety to complete strangers on the Internet,” Ople said.

Ople added that the department continues to draw inspiration from the UN Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Their Families as well as the UN Global Compact on Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration.

“We will continue to push for reforms to include incentives for fair and ethical recruitment, country-specific employment contracts, more bilateral labor agreements with anti-trafficking provisions, and zero tolerance for graft and corruption,” she said.

The Philippines has existing bilateral labor agreements with provisions against trafficking in persons with the following countries:

• United Arab Emirates

• United Kingdom and Northern Ireland

• Jordan

“We intend to pursue more bilateral agreements with anti-trafficking provisions as our contribution to the global efforts against modern slavery,” Ople said.