Your urgent prayers are encouraged for Mary Jane Veloso

Advocacy on behalf of Ms Veloso continues, with the upcoming hearing on Thursday 26 September in the Supreme Court of the Philippines. This could potentially be the last hearing against Veloso’s alleged recruiters. As she languishes in an Indonesian prison, her testimony has yet to be included in her trial.

Attached is her case file – but in brief, Veloso is currently imprisoned in Indonesia, since 2010. She thought that she was on her way to a job as a domestic worker, was apprehended for drug trafficking and immediately sentenced to death. Although spared from the death penalty at the eleventh hour in April 2015, she remains in prison her testimony unheard.

For the Philippine judicial system not to include her testimony against her recruiters is a legal precedent that could speak volumes to other Asian countries and their respective judicial systems, about how they prosecute human trafficking.

This is has been an ongoing campaign in the Philippines and internationally since 2010. National Council of Churches in Philipines (NCCP) through Churches Witnessing with Migrants, and many other Asian regional ecumenical organizations have supported this ongoing campaign for Mary Jane Veloso. 

Letters of support for Mary Jane, coordinated by The Interfaith Network for the Rights of Migrants (INFORM), have been sent to the Supreme Court of the Philippines in a barrage campaign leading up to 26 September hearing. Many ecumenical and church organsations are asking the Supreme Court of the Philippines to allow Mary Jane to testify against her illegal recruiters by way of written deposition from her death row prison cell which is the only mode allowed or permitted by the Indonesian authorities

Please pray for Mary Jane, her family and Mary Jane's appeal to Supreme Court for deposition to share her story and testify against her recruiters.