PH Embassy boosts advocacy against human trafficking & illegal recruitment to Lebanon Despite the ban to deploy workers to Lebanon since 2007, hundreds of Filipino workers land in Beirut in search of jobs. The Philippine Embassy in Beirut estimates that at least 30,000 OFWs, mostly women, are working in households, spas and restaurants. A great majority of them had left the Philippines as tourists, going through third countries before finally arriving in Lebanon. Because of the country’s porous borders, and well-developed networks established by illegal recruiters and human traffickers, most OFWs in Lebanon had been illegally recruited or were victims of human trafficking. To address this single most challenging issue, the Philippine Embassy posted on its official FB page in July a reminder on the job deployment ban to Lebanon and a warning against illegal recruiters. Very recently, the Embassy collaborated with Caritas Lebanon in launching a campaign to explain the problem of human trafficking and illegal recruitment to stakeholders. On 2, 3 and 4 November, the Embassy, in cooperation with Caritas Lebanon organized seminars on Trafficking-in-Persons (TIP) and Illegal Recruitment (IR). The seminars were held separately for Embassy personnel, shelter clients and Filipino Community leaders and FILCOORD-Lebanon members. FILCOORD-Lebanon is a group of volunteers from among FilCom leaders who have committed to assist the Embassy in implementing its cultural and assistance-to-national (ATN) activities.
The seminars expounded on international and Philippine perspectives on human trafficking and provided participants a safe and open platform to share their experiences and discuss their concerns. The Palermo Protocol, the Philippine TIP and anti-illegal recruitment laws and regulations, and illegal recruitment modes, schemes and punishments and penalties were elaborated by the resource persons from Caritas Lebanon and the Philippine Embassy in Beirut. The session for the shelter wards included a special lecture on Violence Against Women and Children (VAWC).
Resource persons during the seminars were Ms. Noha Roukoss of Caritas Lebanon, and Vice Consul Edward Chan, Asst. Labor Attache Firma Bantilan, and Mr. Junaid Ali of the Philippine Embassy.
The participants lauded the holding of the seminars as these increased their awareness on the concepts, laws and regulations, and enlightened them on the vulnerable situations of TIP and IR victims. For her part, Ambassador Bernardita L. Catalla asked the participants to share their knowledge and learnings to their families, relatives and friends to curb, if not put an end to this widespread problem.
Mindful of its benefits to jobseekers overseas, the Embassy intends to intensify its campaign by conducting seminars for OFWs in Lebanon.
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