Four workers, including a minor, recruited from Dumaguete City as garment factory workers, were rescued in Manila recently, Romualdo Señeris, Visayan Forum anti-human trafficking monitoring officer, said in a government press release.
Señeres said the victims were promised work as factory workers but ended up as domestic helpers and poultry workers.
Two boys were sent to Pampanga to work in the farm feeding 6,000 chickens a day with no regular salary, and the two girls, one a minor, as house helpers in Manila. However, they managed to inform their parents in Dumaguete of their situation.
Their parents, from barangays Looc, Bajumpandan and Junob, Dumaguete, reported their situation to the City Social Welfare and Development Office, that, in turn, coordinated with the Department of Labor and Employment and VF.
The girls were rescued from their employers by the DOLE National Capital Region, and the boys managed to escape from the farm. The four were turned over to the halfway house of the Visayan Forum in the Manila port, the press release also said.
Señeris said they are now trying to help victims to return to Dumaguete, and building up a case against the illegal recruiter, whose identity was not disclosed, and who comes from Mabinay town in Negros Oriental.
He said the recruiter has no authority to draft workers since its license had already expired during the hiring of the victims, based on verification by DOLE-Negros Oriental.
VF is a non-government organization that works to help combat human trafficking and other forms of exploitation.
This article was first reported by Visayan Daily Star last September 17, 2014.