BI: Human traffickers now using kids as cover

Human traffickers are now using children as cover in spiriting undocumented workers out of the country, Immigration Commissioner Jaime Morente said on Tuesday.

In this new scheme that the Bureau of Immigration (BI) recently foiled, an undocumented worker poses as a child’s guardian to evade scrutiny.

The scheme was discovered in two separate instances in December at Ninoy Aquino International Airport, resulting in two women being barred from leaving for Macau and the United Arab Emirates.

Each woman presented herself to BI personnel as the guardian of the teenager she was with. But upon interrogation, each confessed to not knowing the child and said the child was only accompanying her so she could travel abroad.

The 14-year-old girl has left for Macau twice with two different women, while the 16-year-old boy has flown to Dubai with a female guardian. None of their companions returned to the Philippines. —JOVIC YEE