The Bureau of Immigration (BI) reported on Sunday that the immigration officers at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) foiled the attempt by a syndicate to traffic three Filipinas who were recruited as sex workers in Taiwan.

According to BI Commissioner Norman Tansingco, before their departure via Cebu Pacific to Taipei, the three victims and two of their suspected couriers were stopped at NAIA Terminal 3 on Saturday, 11 November.

Tansingco said that the five passengers were subjected to secondary screening after providing contradictory responses to inquiries from immigration officials, neglecting to clarify the reason or purpose of their travel, and failing to show their itinerary.

The BI chief commended their immigration officers for successfully foiling the attempt to traffic these women, who were lured to work as sex workers. This incident is a clear case of human trafficking that the BI must combat to protect the well-being of Filipino women.

Tansingco also said that citing a report from the BI's immigration protection and border enforcement section (I-PROBES), the women initially claimed they were freelance models who were traveling to Taipei for a basic training course on the Chinese language.

Eventually, they admitted that they had been hired via Facebook by someone who had hired them to provide short-term sex services in Taiwan to foreign tourists.

Authorities identified their two female companions as the ones who coordinated their travel and handled their paperwork.

The three passengers stated that they were told that their income would depend on how much time they spent with their customers and the types of activities that they engaged in with them.

The victims also recounted that before their trip, they were interviewed and screened inside a room in Malate, Manila, where they were asked to strip naked so their bodies could be "assessed."

All five passengers were turned over to the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking (IACAT) for further investigation and the filing of appropriate charges against the recruiters.