THIS question led to the conviction of a woman for violation of the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act. A team of policemen went to D. Jakosalem St., Cebu City for an entrapment operation. The woman-accused approached them and asked, “Chicks mo, dong?” When the policemen confirmed, the woman-accused offered them two minors.
When charged in court, the accused argued that she was only instigated into committing the crime and that she had no history of being a pimp. She also raised as one of her defenses that the minor consented to engage in prostitution.
The Supreme Court declared that, “the victim’s consent is rendered meaningless due to the coercive, abusive, or deceptive means employed by perpetrators of human trafficking. Even without the use of coercive, abusive, or deceptive means, a minor’s consent is not given out of his or her own free will.”
Section 4 (a) of the law provides that it shall be unlawful for any person “to recruit, transport, transfer, harbor, provide, or receive a person by any means, including those done under the pretext of domestic or overseas employment or training or apprenticeship, for the purpose of prostitution, pornography, sexual exploitation, forced labor, slavery, involuntary servitude or debt bondage.”
The Supreme Court decided that the act of the accused in recruiting and hiring the two minors for the purpose of prostitution by acting as their pimp constituted as trafficking in persons under Section 4(a) of the law. Furthermore, her crime was considered as qualified trafficking in persons because the trafficked persons were minors. (People of the Philippines vs. Casio, G.R. 211465 [2014])