POEA seeks ad, PR agencies help in campaign vs illegal recruiters

Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) is inviting advertising agencies and public relations firms to join the government’s campaign against illegal recruiters and human traffickers.

“Any ad agencies, PR firms or their industry associations interested in joining the campaign against illegal recruitment and human trafficking?” POEA head Hans Leo Cacdac said on his Twitter account.

Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz also ordered the POEA to intensify the implementation of its strategies to protect overseas Filipino workers.

Baldoz particularly instructed POEA to train more people who could help implement trafficking in persons (Airtip) seminars and capability enhancement trainings (CET) for local community officials.

She said the Airtip seminars and CET are two of the major preventive strategies the POEA had against illegal recruiters and human traffickers.

The POEA conducts Airtip seminars to educate and develop seminar trainers who are among key stakeholders specified under the anti-illegal recruitment provisions of Republic Act No. 8042, as amended by RA 10022, and of the Trafficking in Persons Act (RA 9208), as amended by RA 10364.

In these seminars, the trainers discuss and explain the modus operandi of illegal recruiters; tips to avoid illegal recruitment, and the legal modes of applying for overseas employment.

They also equip participants with primary skills on investigating illegal recruitment and trafficking in partnership with prosecutors from the Department of Justice.

Participants in these seminars include officials of local government units, law enforcers, prosecutors, members of the academe, Public Employment Service Office (PESO) managers, nongovernment organizations and faith-based groups. RC