Protestors in both San Francisco and New York took to the street to protest the abuse of teachers from the Philippines recruited to come to the US, reports ABS CBN.
The demonstrators say as many as 300 teachers were trafficked to come to the United States.
One who asked not to be identified said he paid $20,000 in recruitment fees, but that promises of a teaching job were not kept.
“We were promised to have a good life here, a high-paying job and sign-in bonuses but all of those things didn’t come true,” said the victim.
Some of those recruited said they had to borrow from loan sharks to pay recruiters who lied about getting them good jobs.
You can hear a lot more of their plight in the video from ABS CBN below. The brief introduction is in Tagalog, but the story is in English.
RE: Protestors say Filipino teachers victims of human trafficking: I could not believe that this happens here in the USA. I live in Minnesota and our state does not have this news. We do have recruiters from Minnesota and one of them was a former Mayor of a suburban city in St Paul and Minneapolis who go to the Philippines to recruit nurses for the hospitals, clinics, and nursing homes here. And the recruiters pay for the passport, visa, airfare and two to three months apartment rent for those who are recruited to come to Minnesota. In fact my sister lives in three story apartment where the majority of residence are recruited nurse from the Philippines. The recruited nurses are allowed to bring their family with them and the recruitment agencies pay for the nurses board examination fee until they pass the board examination. The places that employ the recruited nurses will petition for their immigrant status within two years of their work. The recruited nurses have to sign an agreement that they will work for the health agencies they were recruited for two years. Many of the nurses have moved to other clinics, hospitals, nursing homes for a better pay after two years and a lot of them have purchased homes.