Bureau of Immigration (BI) agents at the Clark International Airport in Pampanga have intercepted another underaged overseas Filipino worker (OFW) bound for Saudi Arabia.
This, as BI Commissioner Jaime Morente noted how illegal recruiters have continued their human trafficking activities despite the ongoing investigation by the Senate on the issue.
The Senate Committee on Women, Children, Family Relations, and Gender Equality reported that most underaged OFWs get abused and underpaid when deployed to war-torn countries in the Middle East like Syria and Iraq. These OFWS usually get diverted to these places after touching down on other nations in the region.
The female human trafficking victim that BI agents rescued initially claimed she was 27 years old. She showed a valid passport, birth certificate, overseas employment certificate, tax account number and other travel documents.
But when subjected to a second round of interviews, she confessed to authorities that she was only 21 years old.
She said her recruiter, identified only as a certain "Muralisa", instructed her to lie about her age.
The minimum age requirement for a domestic helper in the Middle East is 23.