Envoy hails UAE-Philippines MoU on human trafficking

Mariecar Jara-Puyod, Senior Reporter

Philippine Ambassador to the UAE Hjayceelyn M. Quintana who had been pushing for an agreement between the host government and Manila with regard to human trafficking, expressed on Saturday her satisfaction over the recent signing of a historic Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the solution of this decades-long problem.

Quintana was among the UAE and Philippine delegation members who had witnessed the signing of the pact, officially known as the “Memorandum of Understanding in Combating Human Trafficking,” between UAE Foreign Affairs Minister Sheikh Abdullah Bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr on Thursday.

The signing was held during the bilateral meeting between the UAE and the Philippines on the sidelines of the “74th UN General Assembly” at the United Nations Headquarters in New York. 

She told Gulf Today: “Negotiations for the agreement started in November last year. This was one of the agreements I started pushing for last year.”

Quintana expressed hope the MoU would significantly help address the issues faced by irregular and undocumented Filipinos, especially household service workers (HSWs) or domestic help against labour as well as human trafficking syndicates.

She said the agreement was the first of its kind to be signed between the Philippines and a Middle Eastern country.

Gulf Today which has been reporting about the Filipino community in the UAE in the past 14 years has seen the deplorable plight of Filipinos who have become willing and/or unwilling victims of the various forms of human trafficking—some committed by their very own families, relatives and friends or neighbours in the Philippines and in the UAE, in cahoots with nefarious individuals. In recent years, the transnational crime is committed by strangers via the internet and social media platforms.

A huge number of them end up as HSWs.

Among the worse was the case of a young girl from one of the provinces of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

At age 14, “Bunso” (Youngest), the monicker given her by fellow women wards at the Philippine Overseas Labour Office-Filipino Workers and Migrants Shelter in Abu Hail, Dubai, between 2006 and 2007, had been forced to work as a housemaid with a falsified age in her documents including her Philippine passport. 

At the signing in New York, both Al Nahyan and Locsin “lauded the landmark document as an important step towards protecting human migrant workers.”

They affirmed that “international cooperation and adherence to international standards and principles on combating human trafficking will effectively minimise, if not totally eradicate, this abhorrent scourge to humanity.”

From the Philippine side, other witnesses to the signing agreement were Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA)-Office of the Undersecretary for Migrant Workers Affairs Undersecretary Sarah Arriola, DFA Undersecretary Brigido Dulay and Department of Justice (DoJ) Undersecretary Emmeline Aglipay-Villar.

In a statement, Manila’s DoJ, welcomed the MoU signing: “This trailblasing document will provide a platform for a more regular and transparent information exchange and sharing of best practices on the prevention and protection of trafficking victims.”

On the MoU relevance, the DoJ said this would “bring together the agency point of contacts of both governments, and promote cooperation and assistance in the repatriation and rehabilitation of (human trafficking) victims.”

The DoJ said, “it cannot over-emphasise the MoU’s significance as both the Philippines and the UAE commit to protecting human rights and ensure that the rule of law is respected in all jurisdictions.” 

From the Philippine side, the implementing agency would be the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking (IACAT).

IACAT is composed of nine Philippine government agencies and three Philippine, international and regional non-government organisations.