A July 26 Inquirer article tells stories of two gay overseas Filipino workers recounting experiences of abuse and sex trafficking in Saudia Arabia and Bahrain.

Ryan (not his real name), an information technology specialist in Damman, Saudi Arabia, told Inquirer how gays, especially newcomers, become victims of sexual abuse in Saudi.

Emmie (also not his real name), meanwhile, worked in a salon he suspected was a prostitution front and facilitated sex trafficking.

Their full stories here.

In Lapu-lapu City, Cebu, the mother of a young government official was accused of abusing three female minors and a 22-year old woman by forcing them to “perform lewd acts” in front of a video camera in the suspect’s home.

The four victims were rescued July 18 by the National Bureau of Investigation in Central Visayas. The suspect will be charged with violating Republic Act 9208 or the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2003, in relation to Republic Act 7610 or the Anti-Child Abuse Law.

Read the full story here.

Myanmar’s neighboring countries, including the Philippines, could be exit points for Myanmar refugees trafficked outside the country.

Malaysian police recently busted five immigration officials who received payments from an international trafficking syndicate that sells refugees for forced labor, a July 21 AFP report in Inquirer.net said.

The syndicate operates in the “Malaysia-Thai border” and on to other “exit points in other international countries,” according to the report.

The five officials were among nine who had helped facilitate the transport of the refugees across the country starting last year. Four had been detained since. More details here.

The Philippines implemented a ban on kidney transplants for foreigners on May 2008. But it didn’t take long for foreigners looking for local transplants to find a loophole in the law.

In a press conference, DSWD Secretary Esperanza Cabral said sham marriages between locals and foreigners are now being done to disguise organ sales.

A July 21 Inquirer article reported Cabral saying how two months ago, the National Kidney and Transplant Institute rejected the case of a Saudi national who wanted to schedule a kidney transplant with his Filipino wife.

The marriage was clearly a ploy to go around the law on the ban on foreign kidney transplants, Cabral said in the Inquirer article.

She added that since the ban on foreign transplants was implemented,  government officials have noticed an increase in sham marriages. More details here.

Here’s good news to those monitoring efforts to fight human trafficking.

An Inquirer article dated July 15 says Taiwan has formed its own anti-trafficking group to monitor cases of trafficking and violation of labor laws in their country.

The move was sparked by 10 OFWs who filed a case against their employers in the said country, complaining of underpayment and confiscation of their passports.

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Back home,  Rep. Jonathan Dela Cruz’s House Resolution 1245, which seeks an inquiry into cases of prostitution and trafficking of women, should help speed up prosecution and investigations of human trafficking in the Philippines.

Dela Cruz filed the resolution after operatives of the Bureau of Immigration arrested foreigners using fake passports and fake travel documents. He suspects the Philippines is becoming an international transit point for human trafficking.

Read more about the story on Philstar.com’s article ‘Probe on human trafficking in RP pushed’