DFA officers hold workshop on aiding human traffic victims

Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) secretary Albert del Rosario AP FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines — Calling human trafficking a “contemporary form of slavery,” Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario has expressed confidence that the Department of Foreign Service personnel attending this week’s DFA regional workshop on the issue will make great strides in addressing the global problem.

In a message to DFA personnel taking part in the meeting, scheduled for April 22 to 27 in Ankara, Turkey, Del Rosario also referred to trafficking in persons as an “insidious crime that targets the most vulnerable members of society, robbing them of their inherent dignity.”

“With this workshop, I am confident that we will be able to make great strides in addressing this very important concern,” he said.

Del Rosario said the conference was organized “in line with the third pillar of the Philippine foreign policy and our country’s commitment under the United Nations Convention on Transnational Crime and its Protocol on Trafficking in Persons.”

Most of the workshop participants are assistance-to-nationals (ATN) officers from Philippine embassies and consulates in the Middle East and Africa.

The meeting will be spearheaded by the DFA’s Office of the Undersecretary for Migrant Workers Affairs and the Philippine diplomatic mission in Ankara.

According to the DFA’s Public Information and Service Unit, it will be the “first DFA regional workshop to be organized in partnership with the UN Office on Drugs and Crime and the International Organization for Migration.”

The workshop aims to “enhance the institutional capacity of the country’s foreign service posts in the Middle East and Africa to assist Filipinos who are victims of human trafficking, as well as those who are vulnerable to the crime.”

“It is designed to provide ATN officers with adequate legal, psychological and practical training that will enable them to properly identify trafficking situations and render the appropriate assistance with due regard to the victims’ rights, safety and special needs,” the PISU added.

Last year, the country’s diplomatic posts in the Middle East and Africa reported that a total of 2,386 Filipino migrant workers fell prey to traffickers.

The DFA called these regions the “most popular destinations for Filipino jobseekers who are highly vulnerable to trafficking and exploitation.”