The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) gives warning to applicants especially women not to accept job offers from illegal recruiters that would require them to leave through exit points in the southern part of the country.

Administrator Hans Cacdac said human traffickers use exit points in the southern provinces to deploy workers without proper work documents to countries such as Malaysia, South Korea, China, Morocco, Lebanon, Syria, and other Middle East countries.

Cacdac added that most workers who go through backdoor exits often ends up without work in a foreign country, or forced to accept low-paying household jobs or as farm hands in remote plantations or establishments used as front for prostitution.

“From the southernmost parts of Mindanao and Palawan, traveling by sea to Malaysia is the more convenient way for a human trafficker to move its victims to their final country of destination," Cacdac added.

The POEA administrator said that just recently, the Philippine Overseas Labor Office in Kuala Lumpur reported that five Filipino women are being held in a night club in Malaysia which is controlled by a large syndicate involved in human trafficking for prostitution.

The report said the syndicate transported the victims through the Zamboanga-Sandakan-Kota Kinabalu-Johor Bahru route.

Cacdac said recent studies on human trafficking in the Philippines indicated that most of the victims were travelers deceived by their recruiters about their real jobs or the conditions of their employment overseas.

"Hence, I would advise aspiring OFWs to be doubtful when recruiters offer Mindanao and Palawan

as exit points. Please be very, very careful and always check whether the recruiter, foreign employer,

and the job order are in POEA records," Cacdac concluded.