Child Prostitution in Sri Lanka

Philippines: 2 Foreigners Arrested at Airport on Trafficking Charges

From ABS-CBN:

Two foreigners have been arrested by immigration authorities at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) for alleged human trafficking, the Bureau of Immigration said Saturday.

BI Commissioner Marcelino Libanan said Singaporean R. Murliy and Sri Lankan Vignesvaran Saravanan have been accosted at the NAIA 2 centennial terminal on June 27 as they were about to board a Philippine Airlines flight to Vancouver.

Immigration officials said Saravanan was carrying a tampered Singaporean passport and a fake Singaporean identity card.

During interrogation, Saravanan has claimed that Murliy is a friend of his aunt who lives in Canada, Libanan said.

The Sri Lankan also admitted to authorities that Murliy was the one who financed his aborted trip. Murliy is believed to a member of a human trafficking syndicate that uses the Philippines as a transit point for smuggling illegal aliens to Canada.

Murliy and Saravanan are detained at the Bicutan immigration jail while awaiting deportation.

Immigration Operatives on Guard for Human Trafficking

By Tetch Torres

From the Inquirer:

MANILA, Philippines -- Immigration operatives are on guard at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) following attempts by international syndicates to use Manila and Kuala Lumpur as transit point for human smuggling.

Immigration chief Marcelino C. Libanan ordered the NAIA-BI operatives to be vigilant after five passengers from Malaysia bound for Vancouver and Amsterdam were found to be carrying fake travel documents in a span of three weeks.

Libanan said "there is a pattern in the syndicate's movements and the frequency is rising that it would not escape notice."

"We are sending advisories to our Malaysian counterparts on this string of arrests of passengers that slipped their area," he said, adding that international cooperation is essential to combating human trafficking.

On Saturday, NAIA-BI personnel intercepted three Sri Lankans with bogus Malaysian and Singaporean passports as they were about to board a Royal Dutch Airlines flight for Amsterdam hours after they arrived as transit passengers from Kuala Lumpur.

One of the passengers, identified as Vengtespura Rao Appalanaidu, managed to escape while his passport and those of his companions were being examined at the airline counter. But airport authorities found Vengtespura Monday still inside NAIA. Vengtespura and the three Sri Lankans were sent back to Malaysia.

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Conflict in Sri Lanka Raises Risk of Trafficking

By Shihar Aneez

From Reuters:

COLOMBO, March 25 - Sri Lanka's protracted and increasingly bloody civil war is making the country more vulnerable to human trafficking, a senior United Nations official said on Tuesday.

People fleeing conflict-torn areas in Sri Lanka's north and east, where fighting between Tamil Tiger rebels and state security forces has raged since 1983, opened the door to people smugglers keen to profit from the vulnerable, the United Nations said.

"The conflict you have is quite clearly going to be a major factor in increasing vulnerability of some of the country's young people," Gary Lewis, representative of the U.N. Office for Drugs and Crime in South Asia, told Reuters.

"Migration is the key in which traffickers and traffic victims meet," Lewis said after a briefing in Colombo.

Sri Lanka, a developing nation of 20 million, has one of the lowest incidences of people smuggling in Asia, despite the ongoing conflict which has claimed 70,000 lives.

Lewis's office estimates at least 150,000 people are trafficked within South Asia each year, led by India and followed by Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

But with fighting intensifying between government troops and the rebels, the U.N.'s refugee agency UNHCR says around 188,000 Sri Lankans have been forced from their homes since April 2006.

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