CEBU CITY – A teenage model in Cebu accused her former manager and an events organizer of sexually abusing her.
“Hannah” (not her real name) on Wednesday, June 29 filed charges against the two suspects for violation of Section 4 of Republic Act (RA) No. 10364 or the Expanded Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act.
The charges were filed before the City Prosecutor’s Office of Mandaue City.
The Children’s Legal Bureau (CLB) is assisting Hannah in the case identified the suspects as Wafer and Yosores.
“There is sufficient cause for us to believe that what there was connivance between Wafer and Yosores. All the circumstances point to the fact that Hannah was led to the lion’s den. She was in such situation where she can no longer resist an impending abuse. The prize dangled before her was a contract for a Bikini Open where Wafer was expected to get 50 percent of whatever she earns,” lawyer Kristine Marciana Laplana, legal officer of CLB, said in a statement.
The charges stemmed from an incident on September 2021 in a hotel in Mandaue where a supposed screening for a Bikini Open was set up by the manager but the model ended up being allegedly abused instead by the events organizer.
Hannah alleged that Wafer, her former manager, connived with the events organizer in setting her up to be sexually abused.
She narrated that in the evening of Sept. 13, 2021, Wafer called her to screen for a Bikini Open and was surprised to see Yosores, whom she said had made prior requests for hangouts which she turned down.
Hannah said her manager did not tell her whom she was meeting. She was not also informed that she was the only one to be screened in the supposed photo shoot.
According to Hannah, she wanted to back out but was unable to do so when Yosores set her up for a dinner. She was then led into his car and brought to a motel in Barangay Tipolo, Mandaue where she was allegedly raped.
In a separate complaint for rape earlier filed by Hannah, she narrated that while inside one of the rooms, Yosores instructed her to wear swimsuit and flirt with him.
She said that he boasted of his other models competing for his attention. Hannah added that he promised her that he will give her money so her mother would no longer have to work hard, and that he would arrange for her to have “sugar daddies.”
CLB is assisting Hannah under its program Strength-Counter-Trafficking in Persons Project with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Partnership for Development Assistance (PDAP).
“This is not the first time that we learned that women and children are being lured into the glamour of the modeling and pageant world, only to be sexually abused and trafficked. We are glad that our client found the courage to pursue this case against her manager and the events organizer. She could have chosen to be silent, but she fought, not only for herself but also for others who were victimized by her perpetrators,” lawyer Noemi Truya-Abarientos, spokesperson of CLB, said.