Prosecutions
A court in Zamboanga City sentenced a member of a trafficking syndicate to life imprisonment in March 2007 for having recruited six victims and peddled them to a brothel in Sandakan, Malaysia. In 2006, law enforcement agencies filed 60 new trafficking cases with the Department of Justice. In 2005, police and the DOJ charged a police officer for allegedly trafficking minors for sexual exploitation at his Manila nightclub. In 2006, law enforcement agencies filed 60 new trafficking cases with the Department of Justice.
Ferdinand Lavin, chief of the National Bureau of Investigation Anti-Human Trafficking Division, states there were 168 alleged cases of trafficking in 2008, a 60 percent increase over the previous year, with four convictions.
The Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons states, “Trials often take years to conclude because of a lack of judges and courtrooms, high turnover, and non-continuous trials, which cause some victims to withdraw their testimony.”
The US State Department says that judges in the Philippines often have a poor understanding of the anti-trafficking law.
Read more about this topic: Human Trafficking In The Philippines