Mother, daughter convicted of trafficking kids in Bohol

Emma Leocadio sits behind bars with her daughter Sherryl after their arrest on Aug. 5, 2011 for transporting 15 children from Getafe, Bohol.

A Tagalog  mother and her daughter were convicted for   recruiting and transporting 15 adolescent girls from  Bohol province to Angeles City  in Pampanga in 2011 as part of a cybersex operation.

Emma Leocadio and her daughter Sherryl were found guilty of violating Republic Act 9208 or the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2003.

They were sentenced to life imprisonment or a maximum of 40 years in jail by Judge Bienvinido Saniel of the Regional Trial Court Branch 20.

The mother and daughter, both residents of Tandang Sora, Quezon City, were arrested at Pier 4 in Cebu City while facilitating the transport of the  girls on  Aug. 5, 2011.

The victims aged 13 to 21 were recruited from Getafe town in Bohol and were promised jobs at an Internet café in Manila.

They were set to board a vessel for Manila when a security guard at the Cebu port noticed that they didn’t look like students on a field trip or relatives of the two women.

The  guard tipped off the Maritime police.

Emma and Sherryl were arrested after they failed to present documents for the children in their company.

During  trial for charges of human trafficking,  seven witnesses were presented, including four of the girls,  to prove that the two women  were engaged in an online business.

John Tanagho, deputy field office director of the International Justice Mission, said the victims were told by the two women to to follow whatever foreign customers would ask them to do.

Had they not been rescued, Tanagho said the  girls  would have been sexually exploited.

“The two accused who sought to make money by ruining the lives of innocent, poor children from Bohol will now spend the rest of their lives in prison,” he said.

The IJM, which has been fighting cases of human trafficking, said perpetrators have shifted from  traditional modes of exploitation to cybersex.

“Online sexual exploitation of children is different from human trafficking in bars and on streets,” the agency’s press statement read.

Victims are much younger.

“Another difference is that the end-users or customers of online sexual exploitation are in foreign countries  who livestream webcam videos of Filipino children being sexually abused or exploited,” it said.