Tuesday, July 06, 2004 NBI agents rescue 70 kids from sex trade
MANILA -- Seven people, including one from Japan, were arrested while 70 children were rescued from a prostitution and pornography ring in Los Baņos, a television report said Monday.
The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) raided the hideout of the ring in a resort in the town of Los Baņos in Laguna Province over the weekend, the ABS-CBN television station reported.
The arrests of seven suspected cameramen and producers of pornographic video followed a tip off from Dutch national Christian Kerremans, a member of the SOS Childcare Foundation, who said he was offered a child for sex.
Charges for the violation of the Anti-Child Trafficking Law were filed Monday against the suspects.
NBI officers said the rescued children ranged in age from five to 12. Some of the children were swimming in the pool in the resort when the raid took place.
The children have been turned over to social workers, the report said, adding that the authorities were reluctant to return them to their parents due to fears that they may have sold them into prostitution in the first place.
One of the children, a 5-year-old girl, cried when the raiding team arrived. NBI agents found her in the room in the resort where the digital cameras and other equipment were recovered.
She said she was swimming in the pool when she was asked to get inside the room. She added that a man who was speaking in English brought her and the other children to the report. (Sunnex/AFP)
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