Trafficking in persons is an illegal act and is considered a violation of human rights. It is inimical to human dignity and national development.
There are three (3) interrelated and interdependent elements that must be present for a situation to be considered within the purview of RA 9208 as amended by RA 10364 and RA 11862.
These elements are: act, means, and exploitative purpose.
Act: It involves the recruitment, obtaining, hiring, providing, offering, transportation, transfer, maintaining, harboring, or receipt of persons, with or without the victim’s consent or knowledge, within or across national borders;
Means: It is committed by means of threat or use of force, or other forms of coercion, abduction, fraud, deception, abuse of power or of position, taking advantage of the vulnerability of the person, or the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person; and
Purpose: It is done for the purpose of exploitation which includes at a minimum, the exploitation or the prostitution of others, or the engagement of others for the production or distribution, or both, of materials that depict child sexual abuse or exploitation, or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor or services, slavery, servitude, or the removal or sale of organs.
Each of these elements must be present and linked to each other: the act must be achieved by one of the means and both must be linked to achieving the exploitative purpose. If one of the three (3) elements is absent, then the situation may not involve trafficking in persons, except if it involves trafficking of a child. The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, adoption, or receipt of a child for the purpose of exploitation or when the adoption is induced by any form of consideration for exploitative purposes shall also be considered as trafficking in persons even if it does not involve any of the means mentioned.