Immigration officials at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) rescued a near-victim of a mail-order bride racket that sends Filipinas to China under false stories.
In a report to Bureau of Immigration Commissioner Norman Tansingco, the immigration protection and border enforcement section (I-PROBES) said the female passenger was intercepted at NAIA Terminal 3 before she could board a China Southern Airlines flight to Guangzhou, China.
According to I-PROBES, the victim, whose identity was concealed in line with the anti-trafficking statute, stated that she intended to travel to China to join her supposed spouse.
According to reports, the alleged victim showed a marriage license as evidence of the couple’s civil wedding, which purportedly happened in the Pasig City Hall in January last year.
“As per the marriage certificate, the wedding was solemnized by a female preacher, but in a wedding picture she presented, that solemnizing officer appears to be a man,” I-PROBES said in its report.
Eventually, she acknowledged that the marriage was fake and that it was set up by a fixer who specializes in finding Filipinas willing to marry Chinese nationals.
The victim also confessed that prior to the trip of her “husband” to the Philippines, the two had not met. Likewise, they had not entered into a long-distance relationship, she said.
She added she was promised by her recruiter that she would receive half a million pesos upon her arrival in China in exchange for marrying her foreign spouse.
Tansingco had earlier warned Filipinas against falling prey to mail-order bride syndicates, as they often end up working as domestic helpers and being subjected to unfair labor practices by their employer-spouse.
He stressed that the racket had already victimized many Filipinas.