HRL Reference 4

Human trafficking

Human trafficking is a horrific crime against millions of people, especially against women and
children, and it is increasing in the Philippines. There are 4.5 million people victimized by
human traffickers annually around the world. But it could be much more since it is a hidden
crime. It is the modern slavery and a crime against humanity.
The most vulnerable are young women and minors who are lured or forced into the sex trade by
human traffickers and sex bar owners and pimps. It is a dehumanizing experience for all victims
especially the child victims most of whom are 15 to 17 years of age. It is estimated that 33
percent of the 4.5 million victims are minors. Once they fall into the hands and the control of the
traffickers, they are powerless. They become captives. They are taken from villages and cash
loans given to their parents to be repaid from the earning of the child in promised jobs.
However the jobs turn out to be sex work in sex bars where they are raped and abused and made
into sex workers, servicing many customers a night. It’s a living nightmare, a cruel existence
with no escape. The young women and children are forever in debt. They are bonded labor, never
able to leave and living in fear of being jailed for non-payment of debt. They pay for food and
lodging and then for drugs when they are addicted.
Almost 70 percent of trafficked and sexually abused children and young girls begin their
vulnerability as victims of domestic sexual abuse from as young as 13 and 14 years of age. Their
abusers are relatives or neighbors, live-in partners of the mothers, their biological fathers, uncles
or grandfathers. The children cannot endure the abuse. They are threatened with harm if they tell
anyone and are frightened to report the sexual abuse to anyone. Some run away, unable to endure
the abuse. They live on the street and are taken by human traffickers.
Eventually, some victims do tell their trusted teacher or a friend or relative. They tell someone
they trust, usually a teacher, a school friend or their older sister or mother. However, not all
mothers will believe the child or choose not to as the man, a live-in partner, or her husband, is
providing her money. Then the child victims run away from home. They are vulnerable on the
streets or in public parks. They are picked up by pimps and traffickers who offer them food and
shelter. It is estimated that 100,000 children under 18 of age are trafficked into the sex business
yearly in the Philippines, according to Unicef. Many more are sexually abused on live-cam on
the Internet.
The sex industry thrives also on young girls recruited by human traffickers who take them from
their villages and sell them to the thriving and ever increasing sex bars and brothels. This goes on
right before the eyes of the authorities, as every sex bar operates with a mayor’s permit. It might
be said the state approves the industry even though prostitution itself is illegal and it’s a crime
under Republic Act 7610 to have a minor in a sex bar. Proving the child is underage is the
challenge for those who would save them. The government authorities don’t screen the sex
workers except for infectious diseases. They are forced to go to a social hygiene clinic and at
times forced to have abortions. This is illegal but the authorities turn a blind eye to these crimes
as it is in their interest to have a thriving sex industry from which to benefit.
The victims of human trafficking are traumatized, abused, and trapped. After months of abuse
and enslavement, a victim is dependent on drugs for which she has to pay. This adds to her debts
and she comes to accept her fate. The drugs keep her submissive, cooperative and docile when
being abused by customers. She is forever in debt. The minors are trained to have a “loyalty” to
their pimp or “master.” Contrary to what one might expect, not all the girls trafficked want to be
“rescued’ or saved. The bar owners convince them that it is their life job and the only thing they
are fit for and if they get saved they have to pay back their debts. They have been conditioned
and coerced and threatened.
The root causes of human trafficking that allow it to thrive is that it is not seen as a serious issue
or as a “real” crime even though the Philippine law says it is. The law in the Philippines is
usually what the authorities choose it to be.
People in general give little value to children that are not their own. The street children are seen
as petty criminals and expendable. The minors are not considered victims by the police if found
in sex bars. They are considered guilty of a crime and are sexually exploited by the corrupt
police. Sometimes, they are threatened with criminal charges if they do not give sexual favors.
The Philippine Anti-Child Pornography Law of 2009 mandates Internet service providers (ISPs)
to block child porn online. The Philippine National Telecommunications Commission has to
implement the law. Foreign governments must ban convicted pedophiles from travelling abroad
where they can abuse women and children- girls and boys- with impunity. This is something we
can do. Write your government today.
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Human trafficking is considered one of the most profitable organized crimes

in the world as it generates almost $32 billion each year

MANILA, Philippines – Eighteen-year-old Julie (not her real name) was

working in a beerhouse in her hometown of Cebu when an opportunity
difficult to ignore presented itself.

Alicia Tongco, who introduced herself as an owner of a talent

management agency in Manila, offered to make her an actress and to
become her manager. It was an opportunity she couldn’t pass up.

Ignoring her parents’ admonition not to leave, she left for Manila with
Tongco in November 2003. Tita Bing, as Tongco was fondly called by
her “talents”, allowed Julie to live in her house for free along with
other women.

Everything seemed all right, until Julie was peddled to customers

hungry for sex. She was sold 9 times to different men.

600 kilometers away from home, Julie worked not as a movie star as
Tita Bing had promised, but as a sex slave.
Hers is a story common in the Philippines and throughout the world.
Julie is just one of about 400,000 women trafficked within the
Philippines annually, according to the US State Department’s Human
Rights Report.

All over the world, over 10 million Filipino men, women, and children
are subjected to sex trafficking and forced labor, according to research
done by the US government in 2014.

But while Julie’s story is now part of reported cases and statistics on
human trafficking, many people, mostly women and children, suffer in
silence, their stories unknown and hidden in this underground global
business that generates about $32 billion (P1.5 trillion)* a year. Many
trafficked persons are not as lucky as Julie, whose traffickers were
convicted in 2005.

Away from home, trafficked persons end up in brothels, sweatshops,

farms, or in any other place they were made to believe was paradise.

What is human trafficking?

Although one case may differ from another, most human trafficking
cases follow the same pattern, according to a report of the United
Nations Office on Drugs and Crime(UNODC): (1) people are abducted or
recruited in a country of origin; (2) transferred through transit regions;
and then (3) exploited in a destination country.

The UNODC cites 3 elements that constitute human trafficking:

 the criminal act of recruitment, transportation, transfer,

harboring, or receipt of persons within or across national
borders

 by means of: threat or use of force, coercion, abduction,

fraud, deception, abuse of power or vulnerability, or giving
payments or benefits to a person in control of the victim

 for the purpose of exploitation, which includes, at a

minimum, exploiting the prostitution of others, other forms
 of sexual exploitation, forced labor or services, slavery or
similar practices, and the removal of organs

“At least one element from each of these three groups is required
before the definition applies,” the UNODC report stated.

That Tongco tricked Julie to believe she would be a movie star and
that she transported her from Cebu to Manila, where she was exploited
as a prostitute, qualifies Julie’s story as a human trafficking case. With
or without the victim’s consent, any case similar to this would still be
classified as human trafficking, because no person would ever agree
to be exploited in the first place.

Unlike human smuggling, human trafficking involves coercion and

subsequent exploitation once the victim is brought to another city or
province within the country, or to a foreign land. Trafficked persons are
usually forced to engage in prostitution, illegal labor, begging,
pornography, sex tourism, organ sale, and other jobs where they are
exploited and taken advantage of.

Next only to the trafficking of drugs and guns, trafficking in persons is

now the world’s third most profitable organized crime. Hundreds of
thousands of people, mostly from Asia, are trafficked every year.

As a major source of migrant workers all over the world (it has 7
million migrant workers worldwide, according to the International
Labor Organization), the Philippines is no stranger to human
trafficking, “a lucrative underground economy” inside the country, said
the Visayan Forum Foundation.

The UNODC, in fact, ranks the Philippines as “high” in terms of

incidence of human trafficking.

According to a 2016 Trafficking in Persons report, the usual

destinations for trafficked persons in the Philippines are Metro Manila,
Metro Cebu, central and northern Luzon, and urbanized areas in
Mindanao.
Trafficking, it added, also occurs in tourist destinations such as
Boracay, Angeles City, Olongapo, Puerto Galera, and Surigao.

How it’s done

Ferdinand Lavin, former chief of the Anti-Trafficking Division of the

National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), said that prospective recruits
are usually promised decent jobs in urban areas within the country or
abroad, where job opportunities are commonly perceived to be
abundant.

“If these people were recruited in the Visayas or Mindanao, they have
to be transported to the urban centers, because the urban centers are
the places for exploitation,” he said.

Recruiters usually scout for potential recruits in local communities,

aided by headhunters who know the community and its residents well
enough. These headhunters help recruiters convince parents to allow
their children to leave. Often, the recruiters give parents cash, making
it even more tempting for them to send their children to work.

To facilitate transit, a recruit’s personal documents, such as his or her

birth certificate, are faked. Once in transit, they are not allowed to talk
to anyone outside the group and to handle their legal or travel papers.

Upon reaching their destination, the recruits are told that their
transportation expenses, along with other incurred expenses, would be
deducted from their salary. Having huge debts to pay, they then begin
to work, not as sales ladies or caregivers or any other job promised
them, but as prostitutes, laborers on bondage, or even beggars,
according to a primer of TUCP (Trade Union Congress of the
Phillippines).

Taking action

Widespread as it is, human trafficking is a global menace that world

leaders have been wanting to stop.
A significant milestone is the United Nations Convention against
Transnational Crime, adopted by the UN General Assembly during its
Millennium Meeting in November 2000.

The convention and its two supplementing protocols, opened for

signature in December of the same year, was described by the UNODC
report as “the first serious attempt by the international community to
answer the global challenge of transnational organized crime with a
global response in the form of international law.”

In the Philippines, as a response to the convention, Congress passed

the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2003, or Republic Act (RA) 9208.
It was also part of the country’s commitments as a signatory to the UN
Protocol to Prevent, Suppress, and Punish Trafficking in Persons,
Especially Women, and to the Convention on the Elimination of All
Forms of Discrimination Against Women.

RA 9208 set up policies to eliminate trafficking in persons, especially

of women and children. It also established the necessary mechanisms
to curb the problem, and imposed penalties of as much as P5 million
and life imprisonment.

In line with this, the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking (IACAT)

was also formed to address human trafficking in the country. It
consists of 6 government agencies and 3 non-government
organizations, and is chaired by the justice secretary.

The IACAT is tasked, among others, to: formulate policies and

programs aimed at preventing human trafficking; assist victims in the
filing of cases; train personnel who will directly address cases of
trafficking; and engage in information and education campaigns with
local governments.

Despite these, however, many still fall prey to trafficking due to

poverty, lack of job opportunities, conflict in Muslim Mindanao, and the
inability of young children to continue going to school, according to a
fact sheet prepared by the Visayan Forum.
The Visayan Forum adds that as criminal organizations continue to
grow and expand, there still are problems such as the ease of
obtaining fake documents and the lack of cooperation from
neighboring countries.

From Tier 2 in 2015, the Philippines now belongs to Tier 1 of the US

State Department’s 2016 Trafficking in Persons Report, which means
that the government "fully meets the minimum standards for the
elimination of trafficking."

These requirements include vigorous investigation and prosecution of

trafficking cases, severe punishment for traffickers, and persistent
efforts to purge other forms of trafficking, among others.

From 2003 to 2015, data from IACAT show that 246 individuals –
including Tongco and her husband – have been convicted of human
trafficking in the country. (READ: Human trafficking convictions: How
has government fared?)

According to the 2016 Trafficking in Persons report, the Philippine

government convicted 42 traffickers, including five for online child sex
trafficking and two for forced labor, from 2015 to 2016. It also
convicted two immigration officers and charged 5 officials allegedly
complicit in trafficking.

The report added that the police investigated 329 alleged trafficking
cases – an increase from the 282 suspected cases in 2014 and 155 in
2013. The National Bureau of Investigation, meanwhile, conducted 40
operations which yielded 151 suspected traffickers and the
investigation of 67 sex trafficking cases and 4 for forced labor.

For forced labor, victims were usually engaged in "the fishing,

shipping, construction, education, nursing, and agricultural industries,
as well as in domestic work, janitorial service, and other hospitality-
related job" across the Middle East, Asia, and North America.

There is existing support for victims but the government should also
focus on "long-term care."
“The lack of long-term care, absence of mental health services, and
familial involvement in facilitating exploitation left many victims
vulnerable to re-trafficking,” the report said. – with a report from
Jodesz Gavilan/Rappler.com