Immigration authorities intercepted two women who posed as nannies of two minors at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport when they tried to leave for Macau.
Immigration Commissioner Jaime Morente said the foiled trafficking try was another modus operandi of human trafficking syndicates where female victims are made to pose as nannies of minor children so they could evade immigration scrutiny.
In a report to Morente, Immigration port operations division chief Grifton Medina said the two women were intercepted separately at the NAIA Terminal 3 while accompanying minors in going abroad, purportedly to visit the children’s parents.
Medina said intercepted was a 42-year-old woman who attempted to leave for Macau and presented herself as the guardian of a 14-year-old girl.
At the same rime, a 31-year-old woman was stopped from leaving for the United Arab Emirates with a 16-year-old boy.
“In both instances, the women pretended to be yayas or guardians of their minor companions. Indeed, these syndicates will stop at nothing in using every trick they can think of to skirt our ban on the departure of undocumented workers,” Medina said.
According to Ma. Timotea Barizo, chief of the BI’s travel control and enforcement unit, both passengers initially insisted that they were the nannies or guardians of their minor companions.
“They claimed that they were only asked by the children’s parents to accompany their daughter and son in leaving and joining them abroad,” Barizo added.
“Eventually, however, they confessed that they do not know their companions and they were merely asked to accompany them by the parents to be able to travel abroad.”
Subsequent investigation revealed that this was not the first time that the two minors travelled abroad with their alleged guardians.
Both of them also admitted that they previously departed with different guardians but returned without any companion.
BI records show that the girl had twice left the country for Macau with two different women while the boy once traveled to Dubai with another female guardian, but all their companions did not return anymore.
“We believe that those alleged yayas ended up working abroad without proper documentation,” Barizo said.
