A Filipina suspected of being a victim of a mail-order-bride scheme was rescued by immigration authorities at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport last April 8.
Immigration Commissioner Norman Tansingco said officers of the agency’s Immigration Protection and Border Enforcement section stopped the woman while she was trying to depart the country for Fujian, China with her supposed husband.
Tansingco said the couple presented a marriage certificate showing that they were married in 2019.
However, immigration officers noted inconsistencies in her statements and the document she presented, prompting the agents to hold them.
Quoting the incident report submitted to his office, Tansingco said that contrary to the details in the marriage certificate that the duo presented, the victim told the agents that she and her alleged husband were “married inside a travel agency in Manila” and “paid P100,000 to obtain the marriage certificate.”
Tansingco said an inspection by the BI’s forensic documents laboratory found the marriage certificate “genuine.”
The BI chief said the case is another instance of the mail-order-bride scheme wherein women are promised a better life abroad but are made to work as domestic workers with little to no salaries.
Both the victim and her pseudo-husband were turned over to the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking for further investigation.
