DILG turns over P1 M worth of equipment to boost anti-human trafficking

MANILA, Philippines -  Law enforcers received additional equipment that would boost the government’s efforts to address cases of trafficking in persons in the country.

Interior and Local Government Secretary Jesse Robredo formally turned over a total of AU$32,052 (P1,462,532.76) worth of technical equipment to member-agencies of the Asia Regional Trafficking in Persons Project (ARTIP) to boost government’s efforts to address TIP cases in the country.

“With these latest assets, our government’s law enforcement agencies will be in a better position to pin down human traffickers and send them behind bars,” Robredo said.

Robredo said that the equipment will prove to be useful to the concerned agencies as they conduct pro-active investigations and record interviews with the victims and suspects of human trafficking. “This will also enhance the database coverage on TIP cases through networking, data gathering and information sharing within these agencies that have been tasked to combat TIP,” he said.

Robredo said the new equipment - nine computer desktops, 10 laptops/ notebooks, eight multi-media projectors, seven printers, seven digital cameras, seven video cameras, and nine voice recorders – were funded under the ARTIP project of the Australian government’s Agency for International Development (AusAID).

Started in 2006, ARTIP aims to contribute to the prevention of people trafficking in Asia by facilitating a more effective and coordinated approach to trafficking by the criminal justice systems of participating national governments in South East Asia.

Records from Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking showed that as of March 29, there have been 47 TIP convictions, involving 51 traffickers in the country. IACAT said that the number of TIP convictions has increased significantly from July 2010 to March 2011, with a total of 21 convictions, as compared to the number of convictions from 2003, the year when RA 9208 (Anti Trafficking in Persons Act) was implemented, up to the early part of 2010.

The DILG is acting as the executing authority and implementing agency of the project in the Philippines, while the Office of the Undersecretary for Peace and Order is the Focal Point of ARTIP Projects in the Philippines.

The ARTIP member agencies that received the equipment are: DILG, Philippine National Police, National Bureau of Investigation, Bureau of Immigration, Department of Justice, Philippine Judicial Academy of the Supreme Court, Department of Social Welfare and Development, Bureau of Jail Management and Penology, Philippines Centre on Transnational Crime (PCTC), ARTIP Project and IACAT.

Concerned agencies will now also be able to expand the coverage of training and capacity building for their frontline law enforcement officers, he added.