THE Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) and the Department of Justice (DOJ)-led Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking (IACAT) will bring the fight against human trafficking to the grassroots level by setting up anti-trafficking desks in every municipality and barangay in the country.
The anti-trafficking desks, according to Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Robert Ferrer Jr., will help raise awareness in the fight against human traffickers by providing information and other form of assistance to the public.
“We will have a project together with the IACAT chaired by the DOJ wherein we will establish municipal and barangay anti-trafficking desks,” Ferrer said in a public forum.
The IACAT is chaired by the DOJ, with the DFA, Department of the Interior and Local Government, Department of Social Welfare and Development, Department of Migrant Workers, Bureau of Immigration, Philippine National Police, and the National Bureau of Investigation as member-agencies.
Ferrer did not disclose the specific timeline for the start of the project.
Ferrer’s statement came as the DFA recently repatriated 10 Filipinos who were rescued in northwestern Cambodia after allegedly being recruited to work in scam hubs.
Twenty six Filipinos were earlier rescued from the said Cambodian province and repatriated to Manila last April 16.
The Bureau of Immigration has said that majority of Filipinos recruited to work in scam hubs abroad were lured by traffickers through Facebook and Telegram.
Last year, the IACAT, the Office of the Solicitor General and the Office of the Prosecutor General signed a memorandum of agreement to create a task force to enhance the effort to fight trafficking in persons.
IACAT also launched last year a grassroots-level campaign dubbed “Barangay IACAT 2.0” aimed at empowering, informing and engaging communities to fight trafficking and child abuse and exploitation.
