OFW scams, trafficking continue

Foreign Affairs Undersecretary for Migrant Workers Affairs Eduardo Jose de Vega warns Filipinos, as well as neighboring foreign workers seeking employment abroad, to avoid falling prey to internet recruiters and scammers, who may lead them to be illegally recruited and trafficked for POGO jobs and, in some cases, for surrogacy work.

- MARIANNE GO

On the sidelines last week of Malaysian digital bank CIMB's new product offering for Filipino overseas workers, De Vega revealed that the Department of Foreign Affairs, Department of Migrant Workers (DMW) and the Bureau of Immigration (BI) continue to deal with illegally recruited or trafficked OFWs, as well as foreign workers from members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), who come to the Philippines or transit through the country only to be brought to a third country for illegal work.

In the past, DFA Usec de Vega revealed, the Philippines had to help repatriate hundreds of illegally recruited women from Myanmar who were brought to Thailand through the Philippines. The women were used for scamming operations.

Some of the foreign workers, Usec De Vega said, are “ASEAN citizens coming to (the) Philippines for POGOs. So that's a problem.”

There was also a case in the past, Usec De Vega recalled, involving 20 women who were brought to Cambodia for surrogacy work.

Surrogacy is a process in which a woman carries and delivers a child for a couple or individual. Surrogate mothers are impregnated through the use of in vitro fertilization (IVF). A legal contract is required for intended parents and their carrier before medical treatment begins.

The scammers/illegal recruiters, de Vega said, “are part of some sort of regional network where they lure people to go to one place in Southeast Asia, then go around...” However, the DFA cannot identify exactly who the perpetrators are, he said, but admitted that some of the identified employers are Chinese.