Eight Filipinos trafficked into Cambodia on fake job offers back home
MANILA, Philippines — Sen. Risa Hontiveros reported Monday that eight Filipinos who were trafficked into Cambodia to work as cryptocurrency scammers are back home weeks after they were extracted by local police there from their Chinese employer.
Hontiveros thanked officials from the Department of Foreign Affairs, Cambodian police and civil society organizations and individuals who helped in the rescue and repatriation of the eight Filipinos.
"Weeks passed and a lot of negotiations happened because there are processes of the Cambodian government which need to be followed before the human trafficking victims are allowed back to the Philippines," Hontiveros said in a statement in Filipino.
She continued: "These were weeks filled with anxiety. As these crypto scam operations are a relatively new human trafficking scheme in the ASEAN region, there still seems to be a lack of consensus on how we view these victims, some maintaining that they are illegal workers or undocumented immigrants."
Hontiveros underscored that human trafficking victims are victims who fall prey to traffickers due to their hope and desperation for a better life.
Still, she called on Filipinos not to apply to job posts looking for customer service agents in Cambodia or Myanmar because these may be crypto scamming operations.
The senator bared the trafficking scheme in a Senate session late last year, after 12 Filipino who fell victim to the large-scale human trafficking operations were repatriated by the DFA.
READ: Hontiveros bares fake job ads, trafficking of Pinoys to Myanmar for crypto scam
Aside from being tricked into scamming other individuals, the overseas Filipino workers were also subjected to abuse whenever they did not meet their quota. — Xave Gregorio
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