
Child Trafficking in the Philippines: Abused by the Men Sent to Rescue Them
A 13-year-old girl known here as 'Alina' was pulled into child prostitution through poverty, then targeted in July 2021 by an undercover mission meant to remove her from exploitation. She says that during the operation itself, she was abused. DW investigates the rescue, run by the Australian-founded charity Destiny Rescue, talking to witnesses and survivors and cross-checking their accounts against court records and confidential documents. Geoff Harrison of Destiny Rescue appears on camera and admits 'something went wrong,' but the charity rejects responsibility for the informants who worked its operation and stand accused of abusing girls, pointing to a prosecutor who cleared its managers of criminal charges. The men accused of abuse remain unidentified. The film lays out how an operation designed to protect children from sexual exploitation instead created the conditions for more abuse, tracing the gap between an anti-trafficking charity's public mission and what happened to the girl it was sent to save. It is a piece of accountability journalism built on testimony, documents, and direct confrontation with the organization involved.