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3 Oct 2024

Philippines: Prospective migrant workers trafficked after scams on Facebook falsely promise jobs in Europe; incl. Meta response

Joshua Hoehne via Unsplash

In September 2024, Inquirer.Net reported that Filipino prospective migrant workers are becoming victims of illegal recruitment schemes advertised on social media, including Facebook (part of Meta). The article highlights how these schemes can lead to human trafficking.

One migrant worker says she met an agent on the Facebook page, ‘Job for You International’. The page claims to find jobs for workers in Europe in various industries, including in manufacturing, construction and agriculture. The worker paid high recruitment fees to the agent under false promises of employment in Poland and the Czech Republic. The jobs did not materialize, and the worker was trafficked to Thailand before eventually being repatriated back to the Philippines.

In October 2024, the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre invited Meta to respond to the article, and to outline how it monitors and removes content illegally advertising jobs to migrant workers in the Philippines, including job scams that lead to human trafficking. Meta’s response can be read in full below.