The Bureau of Immigration (BI) has revealed the excessive use of the country’s backdoor channel in the matter of human trafficking.
According to BI Deputy Spokesperson Melvin Mabulak, almost 50% of Filipino victims of human trafficking series who are eventually returned to the country are confirmed to be using backdoor channels.
He said this makes the BI’s job extremely difficult because the Philippines has a vast coastline where all of it needs to be monitored to immediately stop syndicates that will attempt to transport trafficking victims from the Philippines to other countries.
According to Mabulak, the BI has asked the Philippine Coast Guard to tighten patrols in the seas, especially in areas that could be bridges to other countries.
Meanwhile, other human trafficking victims who were not sent through backdoor channels were also found to have good travel profiles.
Mabulak explained that they had previously traveled to various countries as workers or tourists, so their profile was not very questionable, especially when it came to the immigration counter.
Because of this problem, he said that the BI is almost daily endorsing someone to the Inter-Agency Task Force against Trafficking for appropriate investigation.
The official stressed that part of the human trafficking system in the country is due to recruitments on social media, so he said that various agencies need to promptly monitor the sites.
