Prostitution in the Philippines
Encyclopedia
Human trafficking
and the prostitution of children
is a significant issue in the Philippines
, often controlled by organized crime syndicates.
Human Trafficking in the Philippines is a crime against humanity.
In an effort to deal with the problem, the Philippines passed R.A. 9208, the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2003
, a penal law against human trafficking
, sex tourism
, sex slavery and child prostitution
.
Enforcement is reported to be inconsistent.
According to the United Nations Children's Fund
(Unicef)an estimated 60,000 to 100,000 children in the Philippines are involved in prostitution rings. According to the International Labour Organization
(ILO) about 100,000 children are involved in prostitution. is a high incidence of child prostitution in tourist areas. An undetermined number of children are forced into exploitative labor operations.
The Philippines is the fourth country with the most number of prostituted children, and authorities have identified an increase in child molesters travelling to the Philippines.
There are estimated to be 375,000 women and girls in the sex trade in the Philippines, mostly between the ages of 15 and 20, though some are as young as 11.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies state that there are more than 1.5 million street children in the Philippines and many end up in prostitution and drug trafficking in places such as Manila and Angeles City.
Government and NGO estimates on the number of women trafficked range from 300,000 to 400,000 and the number of children trafficked range from 60,000 to 100,000.
According to the US government reports, the number of child victims in the Philippines range from 20,000 to 100,000, with foreign tourists, particularly other Asians, as perpetrators.
An estimated 60,000 to 100,000 children in the Philippines are involved in prostitution rings, according to Minette Rimando, a spokeswoman for the U.N.'S International Labour Organization's Manila office.
Based on the statistics provided by the Visayan Forum Foundation, most victims are between 12 to 22 years old.
The Philippines is ranked under Tier 2 Watch List in the 2009 Trafficking in Persons Report of the United States (US) State Department due to the Philippine government’s alleged failure to show evidence of progress in convicting trafficking offenders, particularly those responsible for labor trafficking.
stated: The Philippines has a serious trafficking problem of women and children illegally recruited into the tourist industry for sexual exploitation. Destinations within the country are Metro Manila, Angels City, Olongapo City, towns in Bulacan, Batangas, Cebu City, Davao and Cagayan de Oro City and other sex tourist resorts such as Puerto Galera, which is notorious, Pagsanjan, Laguna, San Fernando Pampanga, and many beach resorts throughout the country. The promise of recruiters offers women and children attractive jobs in the country or abroad, and instead they are coerced and forced and controlled into the sex industry for tourists.
Puerto Galera has been described as one of the Philippines top five spots for child prostitution
, Manila
.
In 1991 a volcanic eruption of Mount Pinatubo
forced an evacuation and destroyed much of the Clark Air Base
, a major United States military facility located 40 miles (60 km) northwest of Manila, which closed shortly thereafter. Most the of sex trade around the base closed at the same time due to the loss of the GI customers. Mayor Alfredo Lim proceeded to crack down on Manila's remaining sex industry, causing many of these businesses to relocate to Angeles City, which borders on the closed base, and was becoming a popular tourist destination especially with former GI's.
By the late 1990s, UNICEF estimated that there are 60,000 child prostitutes in the Philippines, describing Angeles City brothels as "notorious
" for offering sex with children.
In 1997, the BBC reported that UNICEF estimated many of the 200 brothels in the notorious Angeles City offer children for sex. In 2004, Police arrested foreigners and Filipino's and rescued 15 females of a child pornography and cybersex ring in Angeles City.
The current trade is dominated by Australian bar operators and sustained by tourists seeking inexpensive sex, often with children.
In bars catering mostly to foreign men, girls are sold for a "bar fine".
Conditions are sometimes brutal Children and teenagers are lured into the industry from poor areas by promises of money and care, and are kept there by threats, debt bondage
and the fear of poverty.
Angeles City is one of the largest sex tourist destinations in the world with just over 15 thousand women working in its various sex establishments (brothels, bars and videokes).
UNICEF
reports evidence of growing child pornography
production in Angeles City.
Children as young as ten years old have been rescued from brothels in Angeles.
Angeles Mayor Francis Nepomuceno has acknowledged the problem.
“We admit having HIV
cases and that prostitution
may be flourishing".
STD
cases rose five times. The RHWC treated 1,421 cases in 2005, 2,516 cases in 2006 and 6,229 cases in 2007. Most of the afflicted were women.
In 2010, CNN ran an article about a 15 year old who began working in prostitution in a bar in the notorious fields ave, Angeles City because she needed money to support her baby. She was eventually trafficked to Malaysia where she was forced to take drugs and forced to service 20 customers a day
Time magazine reported in 1993 that Pagsanjan was a favorite destination for sex tourists seeking children.
The Filipino government began a crackdown on the child sex industry in Pagsanjan and 23 people of varying nationalities were arrested.
Foreign child molesters take advantage of the poverty, with children often being used as sexual currency by their own parents.
Since then the town of Pagsanjan through civic action has dramatically reduced child prostitution.
, Inc. has a Community Mobilization against Child Prostitution project to prevent child prostitution in Pasay. Children as young as 14- and 15-year-olds are child prostitutes in Pasay clubs.
The Chief of the Southern Police District deployed policemen in schools in Makati City after the abductions of children by those involved in the sex trade industry.
P/Supt. Manuel Cabigon, SPD director, said the increased police presence in schools would deter members of a flesh trade syndicate from further pursuing their illegal activities.
The Philippine Information Agency reports documented cases of children as young as 10 years old forced into prostitution in Davao.
Davao provinces, along with the Caraga region, have become the favorites of child traffickers posing as tourists.
Davao is one of the top five areas for child prostitution and sex tourism.
The Tambayan Center for Abused Street Girls reports more than 1,000 teenage girls have turned to prostitution in Davao City, charging as little as 50 cents.
Cebu remains a destination, source and transit area for human trafficking, where women and children victims are brought to be “processed”.
Cebu has been the destination of international and domestic trafficking of children, aged from 11 to 17 years old.
Hundreds of computers sets have been seized, including sex toys and other gadgets used in the cybersex operations mostly maintained by foreigners.
A forum hosted by the Prosecution Law Enforcement and Community Coordinating Service (proleccs) discussed several factors that contribute to the human trafficking problem and these include poverty, the proliferation of underground cybersex through internet and sex tourism.
Many of those involved in the prostitution of children have been brought to justice in the courts. Most of the 16,000 women estimated to have worked the bars around the largest overseas naval base were forced into the sex industry.
One 16 year old child tells of her experience in Subic Bay: She was locked in a room for a month, starved and force-fed drugs and alcohol to ensure she was addicted and could be more easily controlled. She was often beaten unconscious for refusing to have sex with customers. Pregnancy, abortion, the spread of disease and drug abuse were just some of the indignities imposed on Filipinas.
Despite the US pull-out from Subic Bay in 1992, continues to fester, catering to a new generation of civilian sex tourists. The former naval base, and current visits by American military have been the subject of protests by welfare groups and activists in Subic. Brandishing placards and chanting slogans, members of WAIL and GABRIELA
called for justice for all victims of human rights abuses.
In 1988, the US Naval Investigative Service confirmed the existence of child prostitution in Olongapo City.
After the base closure a new child molesters clientele from countries such as Australia and Europe moved in.
In Olongapo City, there are believed to be 15,000 prostitutes, almost 8% of the total population. Olongapo special prosecutor Dorentino Z. Floresta states, "Politicians do not want people to know that these things are happening in Olongapo," said Floresta.
Leticia Corillo, DSWD regional director stated that the victims were mostly children and women.
Seventy percent are aged from 13 to 17 years old. A DSWD report, said the Waray towns of Paranas and Jiabong and Calbayog City in Samar province and Mapanas and Las Navas in Northern Samar are considered as human trafficking “hotspots."
A trafficker earns $3,000-$5,000 for each woman or girl sold in the international sex trade.
150,000 Filipina women have been trafficked into prostitution in Japan.
of women and children. In a 2004 article, the People's Recovery, Empowerment Development Assistance Foundation (PREDA) reported in 2004 that ECPAT, which it describes as "a global network that campaigns against child prostitution", estimates that 300,000 sex tourists from Japan alone visit the Philippines every year. In the same article, PREDA reports, "many others are British."
Local NGO Preda states that the majority of the "customers" (the word used by the children to describe their abusers) are local tourists and about ten percent are foreign tourists. The foreign customers, according to arrest figures compiled by ECPAT Manila rank in frequency as follows: - American, Japanese, Australian, British, German, Swiss, other. nationalities.
Unicef noted that child trafficking in the Philippines is the highest incidence of child prostitution in a tourist area.
Some foreign child molesters arrange with bribes and corrupt practices to get the children out of the country and abuse them in another country. The problem of foreign child molesters continues to be reported in the press.
Foreign child molesters have operated openly in the Philippines.
Government officials have been accused of turning a blind eye to the sex tourism trade because it helps promote tourism in the country.
The Bureau of Immigration (BI) has warned of a new modus operandi of foreign child molesters in the Philippines, “The child molesters usually meet the mothers, sometimes even the grandmothers, of possible victims online and make them their girlfriends. The women usually let the economically better-off foreigners into their lives and their homes, not knowing that the men would later pounce on their young children.” BI Commissioner Marcelino Libanan told the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
In Angeles, Pampanga (a hotspot for trafficking and sex trade), child molesters are increasingly using the Internet to lure other child molesters to come to the Philippines. Live video streaming on the Web show children being sexually abused. Other child molesters browse personal profiles or lurk in chat rooms to find their victims.
One October 2004 paper asserted that most of the documented cases of child pornography had been instigated by foreign child molesters. A 2005 paper by the same author tabulated reported cases of victims of child pornography as compared to victims survivors of child prostitution as follows:
News reports in 2008 indicated that the Philippines had deported five foreign child molesters that year (one German, two American and two Japanese), and was seeking five Britons.
It is also unlawful under the R.A. 9208, the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2003
, a penal law against human trafficking
, sex tourism
, sex slavery and child prostitution
.
The Philippines Government first outlawed bride agencies in 1990 after being alarmed at reports of widespread abuse of Philippine women in other countries.
There have been 5,000 Filipina mail order brides entering the United States every year since 1986, a total of 55,000 as of 1997.
Matibag, an assistant professor of the Department of Sociology at the Iowa State University, said browsing for potential brides on websites is as easy as shopping for a shirt. Each woman is assigned a catalogue number.
Maria Regina Angela Galias, head of the Migrant Integration and Education Division of the Commission on Filipinos Overseas (CFO), stated that South Korea and Japan have become the top destinations of Filipina mail-order brides.
Over 70% of Philippine women live in poverty, thus making them particularly vulnerable to the mail-order industry.
is a criminal offence under the R.A. 9208, the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2003
According to Human Rights Watch
, the practice of "debt bondage" among sexual traffickers is routine, and women often find that their so-called debts only increase and can never be fully repaid.
Recruiters sometimes buy children and sell them into prostitution. Most often the children have either been stolen from their villages or sold off by their poor families.
of human organs in the Philippines. The NBI said smugglers are now targeting children who are kidnapped and taken abroad where their organs are sold to foreign nationals.
The World Health Organization has identified the Philippines as one of the five organ trafficking hotpots.
as all forms of slavery
or practices similar to slavery; any use of a child in prostitution
, pornography
, or pornographic performances; any use of a child for illegal or illicit activities; and work that is hazardous, including nine hazardous categories. The law criminalizes trafficking of children for exploitation
, including trafficking for sex tourism
, prostitution, pornography, forced labor, and the recruitment of children into armed conflict. The law establishes the penalty of life imprisonment and a fine for trafficking violations involving children and provides for the confiscation of any proceeds derived from trafficking crimes.
Ani Saguisag, a lawyer with the child protection group, ECPAT, identifies lax enforcement of RA 76/10 (sic—actually RA7610) as a major reason why so few offenders end up behind bars.
Department of Justice records show that from June 2003 until January 2005 there were 65 complaints received for alleged trafficking in persons violations in the entire nation.
In November 2009 The Philippine government signed into law of Republic Act 9775, also known as the Anti-Child Pornography Act of 2009, by Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. This landmark legislation provides the full legal armor against producers, transmitters, sellers and users of child pornography in whatever form and means of production, dissemination and consumption, in public and private spaces.
In 2009, the DSWD assisted 632 victims of trafficking in persons, illegal recruitment, prostitution, child molestation, pornography and child labor. From here 188 are male minors, 408 were female minors and 36 were women.
Severino Gaña Jr., Assistant Chief State Prosecutor of the Department of Justice, stressed the need for a national database to track human trafficking cases in the Philippines.
Gemma Gabuya, chief of the DSWD’s Social Technology Bureau, said the national government in a bid to address the problem had formed the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking (IACAT) in 2003 in partnership with civil society organizations and other stakeholders of PACT.
Microsoft
has awarded over US$1 million through its Unlimited Potential grants to non-governmental organisations (NGOs) across six Asian countries, including the Philippines. The latest round of grants will deliver IT training courses specifically for people in human-trafficking hot spots across the region.
Unicef executive director Carol Bellamy stated, The Philippines is among the few countries that are making a dent in the fight against the trafficking of women and children. She also stated, "This is not going to be easy, Bellamy said. "We are dealing with criminals and they are not stupid. There are lots of money to be made and they will go to any length to continue harming and exploiting children in this awful way".
The United States Embassy in the Philippines states that some officials condone a climate of impunity for those that exploited trafficked women and children
Politicians in the Philippines work with local criminal gangs to do their dirty work and in return the gangs are given protection for their involvement in prostitution
.
CATW-AP Executive Director, Jean Enriquez, expressed the groups concerns saying that many of the women victimized by politician-buyers are minors who are vulnerable and powerless. Also, most of them suffer various forms of physical violence
, rape
and degradation
in the hands of customers and pimps resulting in low self-esteem and damaging their body and spirit.
“These women, often referred to as criminals, are actually victims of the system of prostitution. The violence
and abuses they suffer in the hands of customers and pimps cause deep wounds in their being. Sadly, this is made worse by politicians/government officials who buy and use them for (the purpose of) sexual exploitation. They are supposed to provide protection and support to women yet are the ones who inflict pain
and suffering
— they are the real criminals!” Enriquez said.
The First National Conference of Victims-Survivors of Prostitution, held in Manila in October, charged the Philippines' government with committing human rights abuses. The women said that local governments, the Philippine National Police and the armed forces protect pimps and owners of businesses such as bars that promote prostitution
, and that government officials themselves often use women in prostitution.
In 2008, IMA Foundation executive director Susan Pineda stated that, probably the series of raids on alleged prostitution fronts is mainly aimed to force the establishments to pay P50 daily per entertainer as "protection money" by some persons closely connected with City Hall.
Presidential Anti-crime Commission has evidence that the police in Manila are selling the children to foreign tourists and diplomats information independently confirmed by journalists.
When a journalist based in Angeles City wrote stories exposing corruption and human trafficking in Angeles she was harassed, attacked and threatened with death.
When Father Shay Cullen exposed a child prostitution ring in Subic Bay he was threatened with deportation.
The worrying trend is that these health risks are simply regarded as an occupational hazard of this industry. If left unchecked, the deteriorating health standards of these women and girls would have long-lasting negative effects on the Philippine society. Once the physical well-being of these women and girls has been compromised, the health of their potential offspring would also be adversely affected in one way or another. For instance, HIV is often transmitted from mother to child during pregnancy. Furthermore, the constant sexual exploitation and degradation these women and girls face may lead to various types of psychiatric morbidity and an impaired ability to form attachments and successful interpersonal personal relationships. Consequently, their poor health would prevent them from being competitive in the labor market and they cannot be as productive as the average, healthy worker. Similarly, their subsequent generation are also disadvantaged in the labor market due to their poor health. This under-utilization of the nation's current human resources and the loss of future human capital would have long-term repercussions on the economic development of the Philippines. Moreover, the deteriorating health standards of this burgeoning group of individuals could strain the social and healthcare systems of the Philippines in the future.
An estimated 400,000 prostitutes working in the Philippines are underage (of school-going age). Without proper educational qualifications, even the minority of the children who escape their plight lack the skills to be competitive in the labor market and thus, face grim economic prospects. The lack of access to education for these women and girls has a profound impact on the quality of life their progeny would experience also, because these girls, if they ever start a family, may not have the skills or the knowledge to generate a steady source of income to support their family. Without the financial means to receive a proper education, generations after generations would be prevented from achieving social mobility and attaining equal opportunities. This in turn, prevents them from earning higher wages and entrenching them farther into poverty.
In 2006 the Philippine Overseas Employment Agency (POEA) issued new employment requirements for overseas Filipino household workers to protect them from widespread employer abuse and trafficking.
In 1983, Sister Soledad set up STOP (Stop Trafficking in Filipinas), to carry information into rural Philippine communities, stimulate income-producing projects for rural women and pressure authorities who connive at trafficking. In February 1986 they were supported by President Corazon Aquino, who said at her first press conference, "I will do my best so that we will be able to provide jobs for our women...so they will not have to resort to this."
The Department of Social Welfare and Development operated 42 temporary shelters for victims throughout the country. Thirteen of these shelters were supported by a non-profit charity organization.
Philippines law permits private prosecutors to prosecute cases under the direction and control of a public prosecutor. The government has used this provision effectively, allowing and supporting an NGO to file 23 casesin 2007.
The Philippine campaign against Child Trafficking—or PACT, is an anti-child trafficking campaign that was launched by ECPAT Philippines to raise awareness on the Child Trafficking phenomena in the country.
The campaign also aims to encourage local mechanisms for the prevention and protection of children against Child Trafficking as well as other programs which are unified with the intensification of the human rights
of children such as the holistic recovery and reintegration of child victims of trafficking.
In 2010, the Office of the Ombudsman
signed a memorandum of agreement with select cause-oriented groups (the Visayan Forum, Ateneo Human Rights Center or AHRC, and the International Justice Mission
or IJM) so that they could help in the collective fight against human trafficking.
The Visayan Forum Foundation Inc. (VFF), has rescued and helped more than 32,000 victims and potential victims of trafficking since it was established in 1991.
The Visayan Forum work with the Philippine coast guard, the government's Port Authority, and shipping company, Aboitez, to keep monitor arriving boats in the main ports, looking for possible traffickers traveling with groups of children.
The organization has operations in four main ports serving Manila, and says it rescues between 20 and 60 children a week.
However, foreign sex traffickers and child molesters often harass Catholic and other groups by lodging multiple libel and other suits.
In 1999 the PREDA Foundation
, through the International League of Action, was able to bring to justice a group of Norwegians who were trafficking children from one town in the Philippines and bringing them to Oslo for sexual abuse. The youngest of these children were six and seven years old.
which enables them to prosecute their nationals for crimes against children overseas, only a few child molesters who have committed offences in the Philippines are charged and convicted back in their own countries for the offences.
The Australian Government set up the "Australian Federal Police's Transnational Sexual Exploitation Trafficking Team" which investigates child molesters in places such as the Philippines.
Some countries from which sex tourism
originates, including Australia, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United States, have passed legislation which criminalizes sex tourism.
In the United States, the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 makes travel with intent to engage in any sexual act with a juvenile punishable by up to ten years' imprisonment.
On September 15, 2003, the US Department of Labor / Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB) / International Child Labor Program signed a collaborative agreement with the Philippines government, and contributed US$5 million, on a Timebound Program.
The Timebound Program covers sexual exploitation
and trafficking of children for commercial sexual exploitation. The program was geared towards working in various parts of the Philippines.
The United States government provided a grant of 179,000 dollars to help a Philippine non-governmental organization expand its halfway house operations to help victims of human trafficking
, according to a statement by the US Embassy in Manila.
The British Embassy in Manila organised a two-week course led by Scotland Yard
detectives into techniques to investigate cases of child abuse
.
Subsequently, the Philippine National Bureau of Investigation set up an anti-child abuse division - the first squad dedicated to fighting child abuse in the country.
The United States has taken action under the 2003 PROTECT Act with a number of indictments.
Philippine Plaza hotel
in Pasay City
, Philippines
. It was organized by the Philippines’ Child Protection Unit-Network (CPU-Net), to be attended by 675 participants, including judges, lawyers, doctors, law enforcers and social workers, from 37 countries around Asia, Europe, North America and Africa. The theme “Ako Para sa Bata (I am for the Child),” includes issues such as child trafficking, children in armed conflict and natural disasters, child-friendly judicial reforms, and the involvement of media in promoting child protection.
NGOs have complained that the local political and legal establishments protect child molesters, sometimes even including law enforcement.
The United States Embassy in the Philippines states that some officials condone a climate of impunity for those that exploited trafficked women and children
A 13 year old child Sharon tells how she was forced to service more than 1,500 clients before she escaped. My back ached and I bled, she said, I tried to run away but the guard at the door blocked my way and pushed me back into the room. I cried and cried all night.
The UN paper says there are also cases in which the children are "kidnapped, trafficked across borders or from rural to urban areas, and moved from place to place so that they effectively disappear".
Children are at risk of hiv/aids from child molesters.
The prevalence of gonorrhea and chlamydia was 18.6% and 29.1% respectively.
Philippine law provides for compulsory HIV testing in some circumstances, and of course people may voluntarily be tested for AIDS. The Philippine government has provided a mechanism for anonymous HIV testing and guarantees anonymity and medical confidentiality in the conduct of such tests.
Men, Women and children involved in prostitution are vulnerable to rape, murder, AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.
Some men said that it served them right to be infected by men. Wendy Chapkis, author of the book Live Sex Acts: Women Performing Erotic Labor in which she interviewed sex workers said at the 1998 National Women's Studies Association's annual conference at Oswego State University, "We as a culture believe that women who are sexual deserve what they get, are asking to be raped.".
Abortion is illegal in the Philippines. Unsafe abortions render women vulnerable not only to infections and other health complications, but even to death. Because these abortions are carried out in illegal abortion clinics there is no record of how many women and children, if any, die each year as a result.
According to ECPAT chair Ron O'Grady, the chances of full rehabilitation are slim for children who have been sexually abused repeatedly. He adds: "We know that those children who are kept in brothels die quite young. (They) die in many cases before they have had a chance to live. We know they die from AIDS, from drugs and from committing suicide."
What sex tourism really means to the "real girls" is reflected in Poppy's words, captured by Ron O'Grady in his book, The Child and the Tourist:
I found myself dancing at a club at the age of 11... I have had different kinds of customers, foreigners and Filipinos. I tried suicide but it didn't work so I turned to drugs. I want to die before my next birthday.
In the exploitative system of prostitution, bar owners and pimps make the most profit while the women are exposed to abuse, physical, emotional and psychological trauma.
The absence of punitive measures for the male customers enables them to abuse the women in prostitution.
The problem is compounded by the fact that society, even the church, discriminates against women in prostitution.
Pimps bend the girls to their will, drug them. Degrading and humiliating the girls is at the discretion of their international clients. After two, three years the girls have lost their health and beauty. From then on, they are on offer at bargain price to local clients. The humiliation these girls have to go through often drives them into self-destruction. With no self-esteem their lives are on a dead-end journey. With drug addiction, unwanted pregnancies, venereal disease and AIDS the girls go to rack and ruin.
At least 90 percent of HIV positive people in Angeles city were female sex workers, according to a study of the Training, Research and Information for Development Specialists Foundation Inc. (Tridev).
CATW, the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women lists numerous issues and adversities faced by women and girls in prostitution:
Problems Related to Health include: lack of comprehensive health services, not just on sexual health; women’s lack of knowledge of health issues; fear of doctors or medical professionals; and or risky health practices; drug use and risk from drugged client expensive and compulsory check-ups for issuance of health certificates; compulsory HIV tests and the lack of pre-test and post-test counseling, as well as the violation of confidentiality (publicly announced results) or no results given; lack of funds for hospitalization and health emergencies; forced intake of contraceptive pills and unsafe abortions.
Problems Related to the Law or the Legal System
Problems Related to Services
Problems Related to Violence Against Women
The investigation reported there could be as many as 100,000 Philippine children involved in the local sex trade. This crime gang has a system similar to that of the Sicilian Mafia
, Yakuza
and Triads. They often start as a trainee field recruiter, to running individual brothels, and then to overseeing an entire network - an underworld association. Local NGO`S refer to the organized crime syndicates as the sex mafia.
From the Philippines, girls are delivered to prison-like brothels in the North America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East.
The organizers of the trade are varied, as well: it's a strange alliance of the Japanese Yakuza, Chinese Triad, Russian and Italian Mafia, eastern European gangsters, Albanian kingpins, Latin American cartels, Nigerian warlords, Asian businessmen and American financiers and subcontractors.
Cecilia Flores Oebande, the president of Visayan Forum Foundation, says child trafficking is a lucrative business.
"It is, next to drugs and arms smuggling, the second most profitable business here in the Philippines".
In 2006, law enforcement agencies filed 60 new trafficking cases with the Department of Justice. In 2005, police and the DOJ charged a police officer for allegedly trafficking minors for sexual exploitation at his Manila nightclub.
In 2006, law enforcement agencies filed 60 new trafficking cases with the Department of Justice.
Ferdinand Lavin, chief of the National Bureau of Investigation Anti-Human Trafficking Division, states there were 168 alleged cases of trafficking in 2008, a 60 percent increase over the previous year, with four convictions.
The Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons states, “Trials often take years to conclude because of a lack of judges and courtrooms, high turnover [of judges], and non-continuous trials, which cause some victims to withdraw their testimony.”
The US State Department says that judges in the Philippines often have a poor understanding of the anti-trafficking law.
", deems it unlawful for any person, natural or juridical, to commit any of the following acts:
(DOLE) shall, within a period of five (5) years, phase-out the regulatory functions of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA).
Citizen's Battle Against Corruption
(CIBAC) Reps. Emmanuel Joel Villanueva and Cinchona Cruz-Gonzales, on September 24, filed House Resolution No. 779 to intensify the fight against human trafficking on all levels, from legislation, policy formulation, enforcement and prosecution, to rehabilitation and support for victims. Villanueva said: "Human trafficking is fast becoming a major transnational crime next only to the illegal drugs trade and illegal arms trade. Most of the victims of trafficking are being exploited as commercial sex workers, forced laborers and even unwilling organ donors. We must consider the reports of the victims that lack of funds and resources are key problems in the full implementation of the Anti-Trafficking of Persons Act, including the necessary support and protection." The National Bureau of Investigation (Philippines) reported "more than 400,000 persons from both government and non-government organizations who are victims of trafficking and almost 100,000 of these victims are children." Cruz-Gonzales said: "As of last year, only a little over a thousand cases were officially reported."
In 2002, the International Criminal Court
(ICC) was established in The Hague
(Netherlands) and the Rome Statute
provides for the ICC to have jurisdiction over crimes against humanity. For the purpose of this Statute, "crime against humanity" means any of the following acts when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack:
(cyber
-sex
dens
; Internet
shops
with pornographic cubicles). It declared September 28 as the "National Day of Awareness and Unity against Child Pornography."
Human trafficking
Human trafficking is the illegal trade of human beings for the purposes of reproductive slavery, commercial sexual exploitation, forced labor, or a modern-day form of slavery...
and the prostitution of children
Prostitution of children
Prostitution of children or child prostitution is the commercial sexual exploitation of children in which a child performs the services of prostitution, for financial benefit. The term normally refers to prostitution by a minor, or person under the local age of majority...
is a significant issue in the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
, often controlled by organized crime syndicates.
Human Trafficking in the Philippines is a crime against humanity.
In an effort to deal with the problem, the Philippines passed R.A. 9208, the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2003
Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2003
The Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2003, R.A. No. 9208, is a consolidation of Senate Bill No. 2444 and House Bill No. 4432...
, a penal law against human trafficking
Human trafficking
Human trafficking is the illegal trade of human beings for the purposes of reproductive slavery, commercial sexual exploitation, forced labor, or a modern-day form of slavery...
, sex tourism
Sex tourism
Sex tourism is travel to engage in sexual activity with prostitutes.The World Tourism Organization, a specialized agency of the United Nations, defines sex tourism as "trips organized from within the tourism sector, or from outside this sector but using its structures and networks, with the primary...
, sex slavery and child prostitution
Prostitution of children
Prostitution of children or child prostitution is the commercial sexual exploitation of children in which a child performs the services of prostitution, for financial benefit. The term normally refers to prostitution by a minor, or person under the local age of majority...
.
Enforcement is reported to be inconsistent.
Statistics
A 1997 report put the number of child victims of prostitution at 75,000 in the Philippines., with other estimates saying as many as 100,000.According to the United Nations Children's Fund
United Nations Children's Fund
United Nations Children's Fund was created by the United Nations General Assembly on December 11, 1946, to provide emergency food and healthcare to children in countries that had been devastated by World War II...
(Unicef)an estimated 60,000 to 100,000 children in the Philippines are involved in prostitution rings. According to the International Labour Organization
International Labour Organization
The International Labour Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations that deals with labour issues pertaining to international labour standards. Its headquarters are in Geneva, Switzerland. Its secretariat — the people who are employed by it throughout the world — is known as the...
(ILO) about 100,000 children are involved in prostitution. is a high incidence of child prostitution in tourist areas. An undetermined number of children are forced into exploitative labor operations.
The Philippines is the fourth country with the most number of prostituted children, and authorities have identified an increase in child molesters travelling to the Philippines.
There are estimated to be 375,000 women and girls in the sex trade in the Philippines, mostly between the ages of 15 and 20, though some are as young as 11.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies state that there are more than 1.5 million street children in the Philippines and many end up in prostitution and drug trafficking in places such as Manila and Angeles City.
Government and NGO estimates on the number of women trafficked range from 300,000 to 400,000 and the number of children trafficked range from 60,000 to 100,000.
According to the US government reports, the number of child victims in the Philippines range from 20,000 to 100,000, with foreign tourists, particularly other Asians, as perpetrators.
An estimated 60,000 to 100,000 children in the Philippines are involved in prostitution rings, according to Minette Rimando, a spokeswoman for the U.N.'S International Labour Organization's Manila office.
Based on the statistics provided by the Visayan Forum Foundation, most victims are between 12 to 22 years old.
The Philippines is ranked under Tier 2 Watch List in the 2009 Trafficking in Persons Report of the United States (US) State Department due to the Philippine government’s alleged failure to show evidence of progress in convicting trafficking offenders, particularly those responsible for labor trafficking.
Problem areas and history
A report published in 2004 by the VaticanHoly See
The Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome, in which its Bishop is commonly known as the Pope. It is the preeminent episcopal see of the Catholic Church, forming the central government of the Church. As such, diplomatically, and in other spheres the Holy See acts and...
stated: The Philippines has a serious trafficking problem of women and children illegally recruited into the tourist industry for sexual exploitation. Destinations within the country are Metro Manila, Angels City, Olongapo City, towns in Bulacan, Batangas, Cebu City, Davao and Cagayan de Oro City and other sex tourist resorts such as Puerto Galera, which is notorious, Pagsanjan, Laguna, San Fernando Pampanga, and many beach resorts throughout the country. The promise of recruiters offers women and children attractive jobs in the country or abroad, and instead they are coerced and forced and controlled into the sex industry for tourists.
Puerto Galera
There are numerous cases of child molestation that have been reported in Puerto Galera, a beach resort on Mindoro Island three hours south of Manila. The area is a favorite for foreign child molesters seeking children.Puerto Galera has been described as one of the Philippines top five spots for child prostitution
Angeles City
Go-go bars, massage parlors and prostitution were prominent in the "entertainment district" of ErmitaErmita, Manila
Ermita is a district of Manila, Philippines located halfway between Intramuros and Malate.-History:Ermita was founded in the late 16th century...
, Manila
Manila
Manila is the capital of the Philippines. It is one of the sixteen cities forming Metro Manila.Manila is located on the eastern shores of Manila Bay and is bordered by Navotas and Caloocan to the north, Quezon City to the northeast, San Juan and Mandaluyong to the east, Makati on the southeast,...
.
In 1991 a volcanic eruption of Mount Pinatubo
Mount Pinatubo
Mount Pinatubo is an active stratovolcano located on the island of Luzon, near the tripoint of the Philippine provinces of Zambales, Tarlac, and Pampanga. It is located in the Tri-Cabusilan Mountain range separating the west coast of Luzon from the central plains, and is west of the dormant and...
forced an evacuation and destroyed much of the Clark Air Base
Clark Air Base
Clark Air Base is a former United States Air Force base on Luzon Island in the Philippines, located 3 miles west of Angeles City, about 40 miles northwest of Metro Manila. Clark Air Base was an American military facility from 1903 to 1991...
, a major United States military facility located 40 miles (60 km) northwest of Manila, which closed shortly thereafter. Most the of sex trade around the base closed at the same time due to the loss of the GI customers. Mayor Alfredo Lim proceeded to crack down on Manila's remaining sex industry, causing many of these businesses to relocate to Angeles City, which borders on the closed base, and was becoming a popular tourist destination especially with former GI's.
By the late 1990s, UNICEF estimated that there are 60,000 child prostitutes in the Philippines, describing Angeles City brothels as "notorious
Notorious
Notorious is a 1946 American thriller film directed and produced by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman and Claude Rains as three people whose lives become intimately entangled during an espionage operation...
" for offering sex with children.
In 1997, the BBC reported that UNICEF estimated many of the 200 brothels in the notorious Angeles City offer children for sex. In 2004, Police arrested foreigners and Filipino's and rescued 15 females of a child pornography and cybersex ring in Angeles City.
The current trade is dominated by Australian bar operators and sustained by tourists seeking inexpensive sex, often with children.
In bars catering mostly to foreign men, girls are sold for a "bar fine".
Conditions are sometimes brutal Children and teenagers are lured into the industry from poor areas by promises of money and care, and are kept there by threats, debt bondage
Debt bondage
Debt bondage is when a person pledges him or herself against a loan. In debt bondage, the services required to repay the debt may be undefined, and the services' duration may be undefined...
and the fear of poverty.
Angeles City is one of the largest sex tourist destinations in the world with just over 15 thousand women working in its various sex establishments (brothels, bars and videokes).
UNICEF
United Nations Children's Fund
United Nations Children's Fund was created by the United Nations General Assembly on December 11, 1946, to provide emergency food and healthcare to children in countries that had been devastated by World War II...
reports evidence of growing child pornography
Child pornography
Child pornography refers to images or films and, in some cases, writings depicting sexually explicit activities involving a child...
production in Angeles City.
Children as young as ten years old have been rescued from brothels in Angeles.
Angeles Mayor Francis Nepomuceno has acknowledged the problem.
“We admit having HIV
HIV
Human immunodeficiency virus is a lentivirus that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome , a condition in humans in which progressive failure of the immune system allows life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive...
cases and that prostitution
Prostitution
Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...
may be flourishing".
STD
Sexually transmitted disease
Sexually transmitted disease , also known as a sexually transmitted infection or venereal disease , is an illness that has a significant probability of transmission between humans by means of human sexual behavior, including vaginal intercourse, oral sex, and anal sex...
cases rose five times. The RHWC treated 1,421 cases in 2005, 2,516 cases in 2006 and 6,229 cases in 2007. Most of the afflicted were women.
In 2010, CNN ran an article about a 15 year old who began working in prostitution in a bar in the notorious fields ave, Angeles City because she needed money to support her baby. She was eventually trafficked to Malaysia where she was forced to take drugs and forced to service 20 customers a day
Metro Manila
Visayan Forum Foundation has established that most of the children and young women trafficked to Manila from rural areas in search of work are assured jobs as domestic workers, but in a significant number of cases end up in the sex trade.Pagsanjan
CNN states that "A decade ago, Pagsanjan, located about 60 miles south of Manila, became known as a popular location for men seeking homosexual prostitutes." Pagsanjan began to attract an increasing number of child molesters. "In the '80s, Pagsanjan was declared by international gay publications as a paradise for them, a gay paradise, a haven for homosexuals", said Dr. Sonia Zaide, an activist who is particularly concerned by the expansion of the town's sex trade to include minors, mostly young boys.Time magazine reported in 1993 that Pagsanjan was a favorite destination for sex tourists seeking children.
The Filipino government began a crackdown on the child sex industry in Pagsanjan and 23 people of varying nationalities were arrested.
Foreign child molesters take advantage of the poverty, with children often being used as sexual currency by their own parents.
Since then the town of Pagsanjan through civic action has dramatically reduced child prostitution.
Pasay
Childhope Asia PhilippinesChildhope Asia Philippines
Childhope Asia Philippines is an international, non-profit, non-political, non-sectarian organization whose principal purpose is to advocate for the cause of street children throughout the world...
, Inc. has a Community Mobilization against Child Prostitution project to prevent child prostitution in Pasay. Children as young as 14- and 15-year-olds are child prostitutes in Pasay clubs.
Makati
In 2003, Makati Mayor Jejomar C. Binay ordered a crackdown against prostitution following reports that some prostitutes are linked to criminal syndicates. 33 women were rescued from a sex trafficking operation in Makati City by a team of National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) agents.The Chief of the Southern Police District deployed policemen in schools in Makati City after the abductions of children by those involved in the sex trade industry.
P/Supt. Manuel Cabigon, SPD director, said the increased police presence in schools would deter members of a flesh trade syndicate from further pursuing their illegal activities.
Davao City
October 5 has become the Day of No Prostitution Campaign in Davao City.The Philippine Information Agency reports documented cases of children as young as 10 years old forced into prostitution in Davao.
Davao provinces, along with the Caraga region, have become the favorites of child traffickers posing as tourists.
Davao is one of the top five areas for child prostitution and sex tourism.
The Tambayan Center for Abused Street Girls reports more than 1,000 teenage girls have turned to prostitution in Davao City, charging as little as 50 cents.
Cebu
It is estimated there are 10,000 young girls trafficked into sex slavery in Cebu. "What has become very obvious is a growing market for child prostitutes," says Father Heinz, a Catholic priest who has been involved for more than a decade in initiatives to beat the pimps and child-traffickers.Cebu remains a destination, source and transit area for human trafficking, where women and children victims are brought to be “processed”.
Cebu has been the destination of international and domestic trafficking of children, aged from 11 to 17 years old.
Pampanga Province
More than a dozen of cybersex operations have been busted in the Pampanga province and Angeles City areas, this resulted in the rescue of hundreds of exploited women, most of them minors or below 18 years of age. Human trafficking or trafficking in person is some sort of slavery.Hundreds of computers sets have been seized, including sex toys and other gadgets used in the cybersex operations mostly maintained by foreigners.
A forum hosted by the Prosecution Law Enforcement and Community Coordinating Service (proleccs) discussed several factors that contribute to the human trafficking problem and these include poverty, the proliferation of underground cybersex through internet and sex tourism.
Lucena City
Police have rescued at least 14 women, three of them minors, from the den of a suspected human trafficker.Subic Bay
In 1988 a Naval Investigative undercover operation based in Subic Bay were offered children for sex as young as 4.Many of those involved in the prostitution of children have been brought to justice in the courts. Most of the 16,000 women estimated to have worked the bars around the largest overseas naval base were forced into the sex industry.
One 16 year old child tells of her experience in Subic Bay: She was locked in a room for a month, starved and force-fed drugs and alcohol to ensure she was addicted and could be more easily controlled. She was often beaten unconscious for refusing to have sex with customers. Pregnancy, abortion, the spread of disease and drug abuse were just some of the indignities imposed on Filipinas.
Despite the US pull-out from Subic Bay in 1992, continues to fester, catering to a new generation of civilian sex tourists. The former naval base, and current visits by American military have been the subject of protests by welfare groups and activists in Subic. Brandishing placards and chanting slogans, members of WAIL and GABRIELA
GABRIELA
GABRIELA is a leftist Filipino organization that advocates for women's issues.It is a nationwide network of grassroots organizations, institutions, and programs that address issues such as human rights, poverty, globalization, militarism, violence, health, sex trafficking, censorship and other...
called for justice for all victims of human rights abuses.
Olongapo
Trafficking of Women and Children in Olongapo was rampant during the time of the Subic Naval Base located close by.In 1988, the US Naval Investigative Service confirmed the existence of child prostitution in Olongapo City.
After the base closure a new child molesters clientele from countries such as Australia and Europe moved in.
In Olongapo City, there are believed to be 15,000 prostitutes, almost 8% of the total population. Olongapo special prosecutor Dorentino Z. Floresta states, "Politicians do not want people to know that these things are happening in Olongapo," said Floresta.
Visayas
Eastern Visayas continues to be a source of women and children being sent to Metro Manila brothels and sweatshops. Department of Social Welfare and Development officials said the number of human trafficking cases was increasing.Leticia Corillo, DSWD regional director stated that the victims were mostly children and women.
Seventy percent are aged from 13 to 17 years old. A DSWD report, said the Waray towns of Paranas and Jiabong and Calbayog City in Samar province and Mapanas and Las Navas in Northern Samar are considered as human trafficking “hotspots."
Parañaque City
MA Foundation, the Women’s Legal Bureau and the Office of the President’s Philippine Center on Transnational Crimes raided a house in BF Executive Homes, Parañaque City, on Nov. 7, 2003, rescuing 31 women. Another 40 women were rescued in the next raid.Trafficking Of Filipinas to overseas destinations
There are 150,000 Filipina women that are trafficked into prostitution in Japan as reported in the July 2, 1998 issue of the Daily Star. Some of them were sold allegedly sold to the Yakuza for $2,400.00 to $ 18,000.00. A news item that appeared in the May 31, 1995 of the Manila Chronicle reports that 150 Filipinas were sold into prostitution for $5,000.00 each by international syndicates to night club operators in some African countries particularly Nigeria.A trafficker earns $3,000-$5,000 for each woman or girl sold in the international sex trade.
150,000 Filipina women have been trafficked into prostitution in Japan.
Sex tourism
An article in the newspaper Davao Today reports that, according to experts, the growth of tourism in the Philippines in places such as Cebu and Boracay, has given rise to the sexual exploitationSexual slavery
Sexual slavery is when unwilling people are coerced into slavery for sexual exploitation. The incidence of sexual slavery by country has been studied and tabulated by UNESCO, with the cooperation of various international agencies...
of women and children. In a 2004 article, the People's Recovery, Empowerment Development Assistance Foundation (PREDA) reported in 2004 that ECPAT, which it describes as "a global network that campaigns against child prostitution", estimates that 300,000 sex tourists from Japan alone visit the Philippines every year. In the same article, PREDA reports, "many others are British."
Local NGO Preda states that the majority of the "customers" (the word used by the children to describe their abusers) are local tourists and about ten percent are foreign tourists. The foreign customers, according to arrest figures compiled by ECPAT Manila rank in frequency as follows: - American, Japanese, Australian, British, German, Swiss, other. nationalities.
Unicef noted that child trafficking in the Philippines is the highest incidence of child prostitution in a tourist area.
Foreign child molesters
The Philippines continued to assist U.S. law enforcement authorities in the transfer to U.S. custody of Americans who sexually exploited children. Foreign child molesters are a major problem in a country like the Philippines. Some foreign child molesters are very well connected and have positions in industry and politics. Profile studies of these child molesters show they come mostly from Europe and are usually well off, married and with children of their own.Some foreign child molesters arrange with bribes and corrupt practices to get the children out of the country and abuse them in another country. The problem of foreign child molesters continues to be reported in the press.
Foreign child molesters have operated openly in the Philippines.
Government officials have been accused of turning a blind eye to the sex tourism trade because it helps promote tourism in the country.
The Bureau of Immigration (BI) has warned of a new modus operandi of foreign child molesters in the Philippines, “The child molesters usually meet the mothers, sometimes even the grandmothers, of possible victims online and make them their girlfriends. The women usually let the economically better-off foreigners into their lives and their homes, not knowing that the men would later pounce on their young children.” BI Commissioner Marcelino Libanan told the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
In Angeles, Pampanga (a hotspot for trafficking and sex trade), child molesters are increasingly using the Internet to lure other child molesters to come to the Philippines. Live video streaming on the Web show children being sexually abused. Other child molesters browse personal profiles or lurk in chat rooms to find their victims.
One October 2004 paper asserted that most of the documented cases of child pornography had been instigated by foreign child molesters. A 2005 paper by the same author tabulated reported cases of victims of child pornography as compared to victims survivors of child prostitution as follows:
| Case/Year | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Victims of Pornography | 9 | 4 | 7 | 13 |
| Victims of Prostitution | 186 | 224 | 245 | 247 |
- Source: Arnie C Trinidad, Child Pornography in the Philippines (2005), UP Center for Integrative and Development Studies and UNICEF Manila
News reports in 2008 indicated that the Philippines had deported five foreign child molesters that year (one German, two American and two Japanese), and was seeking five Britons.
Mail-order bride trafficking
Republic Act 6955 declares as unlawful "the practice of matching Filipino women for marriage to foreign nationals on a mail order basis."It is also unlawful under the R.A. 9208, the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2003
Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2003
The Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2003, R.A. No. 9208, is a consolidation of Senate Bill No. 2444 and House Bill No. 4432...
, a penal law against human trafficking
Human trafficking
Human trafficking is the illegal trade of human beings for the purposes of reproductive slavery, commercial sexual exploitation, forced labor, or a modern-day form of slavery...
, sex tourism
Sex tourism
Sex tourism is travel to engage in sexual activity with prostitutes.The World Tourism Organization, a specialized agency of the United Nations, defines sex tourism as "trips organized from within the tourism sector, or from outside this sector but using its structures and networks, with the primary...
, sex slavery and child prostitution
Prostitution of children
Prostitution of children or child prostitution is the commercial sexual exploitation of children in which a child performs the services of prostitution, for financial benefit. The term normally refers to prostitution by a minor, or person under the local age of majority...
.
The Philippines Government first outlawed bride agencies in 1990 after being alarmed at reports of widespread abuse of Philippine women in other countries.
There have been 5,000 Filipina mail order brides entering the United States every year since 1986, a total of 55,000 as of 1997.
Matibag, an assistant professor of the Department of Sociology at the Iowa State University, said browsing for potential brides on websites is as easy as shopping for a shirt. Each woman is assigned a catalogue number.
Maria Regina Angela Galias, head of the Migrant Integration and Education Division of the Commission on Filipinos Overseas (CFO), stated that South Korea and Japan have become the top destinations of Filipina mail-order brides.
Over 70% of Philippine women live in poverty, thus making them particularly vulnerable to the mail-order industry.
Debt bondage
Debt bondageDebt bondage
Debt bondage is when a person pledges him or herself against a loan. In debt bondage, the services required to repay the debt may be undefined, and the services' duration may be undefined...
is a criminal offence under the R.A. 9208, the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2003
Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2003
The Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2003, R.A. No. 9208, is a consolidation of Senate Bill No. 2444 and House Bill No. 4432...
According to Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Its headquarters are in New York City and it has offices in Berlin, Beirut, Brussels, Chicago, Geneva, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Moscow, Paris, San Francisco, Tokyo,...
, the practice of "debt bondage" among sexual traffickers is routine, and women often find that their so-called debts only increase and can never be fully repaid.
Recruiters sometimes buy children and sell them into prostitution. Most often the children have either been stolen from their villages or sold off by their poor families.
Child-organ trafficking
In 2008, the National Bureau of Investigation alerted the public over the rampant smugglingSmuggling
Smuggling is the clandestine transportation of goods or persons, such as out of a building, into a prison, or across an international border, in violation of applicable laws or other regulations.There are various motivations to smuggle...
of human organs in the Philippines. The NBI said smugglers are now targeting children who are kidnapped and taken abroad where their organs are sold to foreign nationals.
The World Health Organization has identified the Philippines as one of the five organ trafficking hotpots.
Efforts to control
Philippine law defines the worst forms of child laborChild labor
Child labour refers to the employment of children at regular and sustained labour. This practice is considered exploitative by many international organizations and is illegal in many countries...
as all forms of slavery
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
or practices similar to slavery; any use of a child in prostitution
Prostitution
Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...
, pornography
Pornography
Pornography or porn is the explicit portrayal of sexual subject matter for the purposes of sexual arousal and erotic satisfaction.Pornography may use any of a variety of media, ranging from books, magazines, postcards, photos, sculpture, drawing, painting, animation, sound recording, film, video,...
, or pornographic performances; any use of a child for illegal or illicit activities; and work that is hazardous, including nine hazardous categories. The law criminalizes trafficking of children for exploitation
Exploitation
This article discusses the term exploitation in the meaning of using something in an unjust or cruel manner.- As unjust benefit :In political economy, economics, and sociology, exploitation involves a persistent social relationship in which certain persons are being mistreated or unfairly used for...
, including trafficking for sex tourism
Sex tourism
Sex tourism is travel to engage in sexual activity with prostitutes.The World Tourism Organization, a specialized agency of the United Nations, defines sex tourism as "trips organized from within the tourism sector, or from outside this sector but using its structures and networks, with the primary...
, prostitution, pornography, forced labor, and the recruitment of children into armed conflict. The law establishes the penalty of life imprisonment and a fine for trafficking violations involving children and provides for the confiscation of any proceeds derived from trafficking crimes.
Ani Saguisag, a lawyer with the child protection group, ECPAT, identifies lax enforcement of RA 76/10 (sic—actually RA7610) as a major reason why so few offenders end up behind bars.
Department of Justice records show that from June 2003 until January 2005 there were 65 complaints received for alleged trafficking in persons violations in the entire nation.
In November 2009 The Philippine government signed into law of Republic Act 9775, also known as the Anti-Child Pornography Act of 2009, by Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. This landmark legislation provides the full legal armor against producers, transmitters, sellers and users of child pornography in whatever form and means of production, dissemination and consumption, in public and private spaces.
In 2009, the DSWD assisted 632 victims of trafficking in persons, illegal recruitment, prostitution, child molestation, pornography and child labor. From here 188 are male minors, 408 were female minors and 36 were women.
Severino Gaña Jr., Assistant Chief State Prosecutor of the Department of Justice, stressed the need for a national database to track human trafficking cases in the Philippines.
Gemma Gabuya, chief of the DSWD’s Social Technology Bureau, said the national government in a bid to address the problem had formed the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking (IACAT) in 2003 in partnership with civil society organizations and other stakeholders of PACT.
Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
has awarded over US$1 million through its Unlimited Potential grants to non-governmental organisations (NGOs) across six Asian countries, including the Philippines. The latest round of grants will deliver IT training courses specifically for people in human-trafficking hot spots across the region.
Unicef executive director Carol Bellamy stated, The Philippines is among the few countries that are making a dent in the fight against the trafficking of women and children. She also stated, "This is not going to be easy, Bellamy said. "We are dealing with criminals and they are not stupid. There are lots of money to be made and they will go to any length to continue harming and exploiting children in this awful way".
Protection by politicians and police
Some local politicians, mayors and their business cronies continue to allow the operation of clubs and bars where children are used as sexual commodities along with young women. Many women will tell how they were recruited as young as 13 and 14. They issue permits and licences for all establishments and harass and threaten those trying to rescue the children, gather evidence and bring charges against them.The United States Embassy in the Philippines states that some officials condone a climate of impunity for those that exploited trafficked women and children
Politicians in the Philippines work with local criminal gangs to do their dirty work and in return the gangs are given protection for their involvement in prostitution
Prostitution
Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...
.
CATW-AP Executive Director, Jean Enriquez, expressed the groups concerns saying that many of the women victimized by politician-buyers are minors who are vulnerable and powerless. Also, most of them suffer various forms of physical violence
Violence
Violence is the use of physical force to apply a state to others contrary to their wishes. violence, while often a stand-alone issue, is often the culmination of other kinds of conflict, e.g...
, rape
Rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...
and degradation
Degradation
Degradation may refer to;* Biodegradation, the processes by which organic substances are broken down by living organisms* Cashiering or degradation ceremony, a ritual performed when cleric is deprived of office or a knight is stripped of the honour...
in the hands of customers and pimps resulting in low self-esteem and damaging their body and spirit.
“These women, often referred to as criminals, are actually victims of the system of prostitution. The violence
Violence
Violence is the use of physical force to apply a state to others contrary to their wishes. violence, while often a stand-alone issue, is often the culmination of other kinds of conflict, e.g...
and abuses they suffer in the hands of customers and pimps cause deep wounds in their being. Sadly, this is made worse by politicians/government officials who buy and use them for (the purpose of) sexual exploitation. They are supposed to provide protection and support to women yet are the ones who inflict pain
Pain
Pain is an unpleasant sensation often caused by intense or damaging stimuli such as stubbing a toe, burning a finger, putting iodine on a cut, and bumping the "funny bone."...
and suffering
Suffering
Suffering, or pain in a broad sense, is an individual's basic affective experience of unpleasantness and aversion associated with harm or threat of harm. Suffering may be qualified as physical or mental. It may come in all degrees of intensity, from mild to intolerable. Factors of duration and...
— they are the real criminals!” Enriquez said.
The First National Conference of Victims-Survivors of Prostitution, held in Manila in October, charged the Philippines' government with committing human rights abuses. The women said that local governments, the Philippine National Police and the armed forces protect pimps and owners of businesses such as bars that promote prostitution
Prostitution
Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...
, and that government officials themselves often use women in prostitution.
In 2008, IMA Foundation executive director Susan Pineda stated that, probably the series of raids on alleged prostitution fronts is mainly aimed to force the establishments to pay P50 daily per entertainer as "protection money" by some persons closely connected with City Hall.
Presidential Anti-crime Commission has evidence that the police in Manila are selling the children to foreign tourists and diplomats information independently confirmed by journalists.
When a journalist based in Angeles City wrote stories exposing corruption and human trafficking in Angeles she was harassed, attacked and threatened with death.
When Father Shay Cullen exposed a child prostitution ring in Subic Bay he was threatened with deportation.
Health Forgone
The sexual exploitation of women and girls has dire, life-long, consequences on their health. Some of these health risks include subjection to physical abuse and violence, poor reproductive health and health issues related to substance abuse (drugs are often used as a coping mechanism). Deaths arising from unsafe, illegal abortions and physical abuse and violence, have also become commonplace in this industry. In terms of reproductive health, children fare worse because they often lack the skills and ability to negotiate condom use and, thus are more vulnerable to sexually transmitted diseases like HIV/AIDS and Gonorrhea (a common STD among child prostitutes in the Philippines). It is reported that the prevalence of Gonorrhea was 18.6%. This dismal health standard of the individuals in the sex industry could impede them from attaining the highest possible level of physical, mental and social well-being and maximizing their potential.The worrying trend is that these health risks are simply regarded as an occupational hazard of this industry. If left unchecked, the deteriorating health standards of these women and girls would have long-lasting negative effects on the Philippine society. Once the physical well-being of these women and girls has been compromised, the health of their potential offspring would also be adversely affected in one way or another. For instance, HIV is often transmitted from mother to child during pregnancy. Furthermore, the constant sexual exploitation and degradation these women and girls face may lead to various types of psychiatric morbidity and an impaired ability to form attachments and successful interpersonal personal relationships. Consequently, their poor health would prevent them from being competitive in the labor market and they cannot be as productive as the average, healthy worker. Similarly, their subsequent generation are also disadvantaged in the labor market due to their poor health. This under-utilization of the nation's current human resources and the loss of future human capital would have long-term repercussions on the economic development of the Philippines. Moreover, the deteriorating health standards of this burgeoning group of individuals could strain the social and healthcare systems of the Philippines in the future.
Lack of Access to Education
The proliferation of child prostitution has a direct negative impact on the education levels of the children in the Philippines. The primary school completion rate in the Philippines was only 92% in 2007. In order to achieve the Millennium Goals set by the UN, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, should be able to complete a full course of primary school. This goal may not be reached at the rate child prostitution is flourishing in the Philippines.An estimated 400,000 prostitutes working in the Philippines are underage (of school-going age). Without proper educational qualifications, even the minority of the children who escape their plight lack the skills to be competitive in the labor market and thus, face grim economic prospects. The lack of access to education for these women and girls has a profound impact on the quality of life their progeny would experience also, because these girls, if they ever start a family, may not have the skills or the knowledge to generate a steady source of income to support their family. Without the financial means to receive a proper education, generations after generations would be prevented from achieving social mobility and attaining equal opportunities. This in turn, prevents them from earning higher wages and entrenching them farther into poverty.
Prevention
In 2007, the government's Interagency Council Against Trafficking established its first anti-trafficking task force at Manila's international airport to share information on traffickers and assist victims.In 2006 the Philippine Overseas Employment Agency (POEA) issued new employment requirements for overseas Filipino household workers to protect them from widespread employer abuse and trafficking.
In 1983, Sister Soledad set up STOP (Stop Trafficking in Filipinas), to carry information into rural Philippine communities, stimulate income-producing projects for rural women and pressure authorities who connive at trafficking. In February 1986 they were supported by President Corazon Aquino, who said at her first press conference, "I will do my best so that we will be able to provide jobs for our women...so they will not have to resort to this."
Non-governmental organizations (NGOs)
The Philippine government continues to rely heavily on NGOs and international organizations to provide services to victims.The Department of Social Welfare and Development operated 42 temporary shelters for victims throughout the country. Thirteen of these shelters were supported by a non-profit charity organization.
Philippines law permits private prosecutors to prosecute cases under the direction and control of a public prosecutor. The government has used this provision effectively, allowing and supporting an NGO to file 23 casesin 2007.
The Philippine campaign against Child Trafficking—or PACT, is an anti-child trafficking campaign that was launched by ECPAT Philippines to raise awareness on the Child Trafficking phenomena in the country.
The campaign also aims to encourage local mechanisms for the prevention and protection of children against Child Trafficking as well as other programs which are unified with the intensification of the human rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
of children such as the holistic recovery and reintegration of child victims of trafficking.
In 2010, the Office of the Ombudsman
Ombudsman
An ombudsman is a person who acts as a trusted intermediary between an organization and some internal or external constituency while representing not only but mostly the broad scope of constituent interests...
signed a memorandum of agreement with select cause-oriented groups (the Visayan Forum, Ateneo Human Rights Center or AHRC, and the International Justice Mission
International Justice Mission
International Justice Mission is a U.S.-based non-profit human rights organization that operates in countries all over the world to rescue victims of individual human rights abuse. IJM works to combat human trafficking including the commercial sexual exploitation of children, forced labor...
or IJM) so that they could help in the collective fight against human trafficking.
The Visayan Forum Foundation Inc. (VFF), has rescued and helped more than 32,000 victims and potential victims of trafficking since it was established in 1991.
The Visayan Forum work with the Philippine coast guard, the government's Port Authority, and shipping company, Aboitez, to keep monitor arriving boats in the main ports, looking for possible traffickers traveling with groups of children.
The organization has operations in four main ports serving Manila, and says it rescues between 20 and 60 children a week.
However, foreign sex traffickers and child molesters often harass Catholic and other groups by lodging multiple libel and other suits.
In 1999 the PREDA Foundation
PREDA Foundation
People’s Recovery Empowerment Development Assistance or Preda is a charitable organization that was founded in Olongapo City, Philippines in 1974...
, through the International League of Action, was able to bring to justice a group of Norwegians who were trafficking children from one town in the Philippines and bringing them to Oslo for sexual abuse. The youngest of these children were six and seven years old.
Action by foreign governments
Numerous overseas countries have introduced legislationLegislation
Legislation is law which has been promulgated by a legislature or other governing body, or the process of making it...
which enables them to prosecute their nationals for crimes against children overseas, only a few child molesters who have committed offences in the Philippines are charged and convicted back in their own countries for the offences.
The Australian Government set up the "Australian Federal Police's Transnational Sexual Exploitation Trafficking Team" which investigates child molesters in places such as the Philippines.
Some countries from which sex tourism
Sex tourism
Sex tourism is travel to engage in sexual activity with prostitutes.The World Tourism Organization, a specialized agency of the United Nations, defines sex tourism as "trips organized from within the tourism sector, or from outside this sector but using its structures and networks, with the primary...
originates, including Australia, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United States, have passed legislation which criminalizes sex tourism.
In the United States, the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 makes travel with intent to engage in any sexual act with a juvenile punishable by up to ten years' imprisonment.
On September 15, 2003, the US Department of Labor / Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB) / International Child Labor Program signed a collaborative agreement with the Philippines government, and contributed US$5 million, on a Timebound Program.
The Timebound Program covers sexual exploitation
Sexual slavery
Sexual slavery is when unwilling people are coerced into slavery for sexual exploitation. The incidence of sexual slavery by country has been studied and tabulated by UNESCO, with the cooperation of various international agencies...
and trafficking of children for commercial sexual exploitation. The program was geared towards working in various parts of the Philippines.
The United States government provided a grant of 179,000 dollars to help a Philippine non-governmental organization expand its halfway house operations to help victims of human trafficking
Human trafficking
Human trafficking is the illegal trade of human beings for the purposes of reproductive slavery, commercial sexual exploitation, forced labor, or a modern-day form of slavery...
, according to a statement by the US Embassy in Manila.
The British Embassy in Manila organised a two-week course led by Scotland Yard
Scotland Yard
Scotland Yard is a metonym for the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police Service of London, UK. It derives from the location of the original Metropolitan Police headquarters at 4 Whitehall Place, which had a rear entrance on a street called Great Scotland Yard. The Scotland Yard entrance became...
detectives into techniques to investigate cases of child abuse
Child abuse
Child abuse is the physical, sexual, emotional mistreatment, or neglect of a child. In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Children And Families define child maltreatment as any act or series of acts of commission or omission by a parent or...
.
Subsequently, the Philippine National Bureau of Investigation set up an anti-child abuse division - the first squad dedicated to fighting child abuse in the country.
The United States has taken action under the 2003 PROTECT Act with a number of indictments.
7th Asian Regional Conference on Child Abuse and Neglect
A 2-day “7th Asian Regional Conference on Child Abuse and Neglect,” of the International Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect (ISPCAN), opens on September 24, 2007 at the SofitelSofitel
Sofitel is a luxury hotel chain managed by Accor, which opened its first property in Strasbourg in 1964. Its first overseas opening in Minneapolis, USA was in 1974. In 1995 Sofitel had 100 hotels in 40 countries and employed 12500 people....
Philippine Plaza hotel
Hotel
A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. The provision of basic accommodation, in times past, consisting only of a room with a bed, a cupboard, a small table and a washstand has largely been replaced by rooms with modern facilities, including en-suite bathrooms...
in Pasay City
Pasay City
The City of Pasay is one of the cities and municipalities that make up Metro Manila in the Philippines. It is bordered on the north by the country's capital, Manila, to the northeast by Makati City, to the east by Taguig City, and Parañaque City to the south.Pasay City was one of the original four...
, Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
. It was organized by the Philippines’ Child Protection Unit-Network (CPU-Net), to be attended by 675 participants, including judges, lawyers, doctors, law enforcers and social workers, from 37 countries around Asia, Europe, North America and Africa. The theme “Ako Para sa Bata (I am for the Child),” includes issues such as child trafficking, children in armed conflict and natural disasters, child-friendly judicial reforms, and the involvement of media in promoting child protection.
Corruption
Police in the Philippines have been known to guard brothels and even procure children for prostitution.NGOs have complained that the local political and legal establishments protect child molesters, sometimes even including law enforcement.
The United States Embassy in the Philippines states that some officials condone a climate of impunity for those that exploited trafficked women and children
The victims
Those involved in the kidnapping of children occasionally make video tapes of children being sexually abused.A 13 year old child Sharon tells how she was forced to service more than 1,500 clients before she escaped. My back ached and I bled, she said, I tried to run away but the guard at the door blocked my way and pushed me back into the room. I cried and cried all night.
The UN paper says there are also cases in which the children are "kidnapped, trafficked across borders or from rural to urban areas, and moved from place to place so that they effectively disappear".
Children are at risk of hiv/aids from child molesters.
The prevalence of gonorrhea and chlamydia was 18.6% and 29.1% respectively.
Philippine law provides for compulsory HIV testing in some circumstances, and of course people may voluntarily be tested for AIDS. The Philippine government has provided a mechanism for anonymous HIV testing and guarantees anonymity and medical confidentiality in the conduct of such tests.
Men, Women and children involved in prostitution are vulnerable to rape, murder, AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.
Some men said that it served them right to be infected by men. Wendy Chapkis, author of the book Live Sex Acts: Women Performing Erotic Labor in which she interviewed sex workers said at the 1998 National Women's Studies Association's annual conference at Oswego State University, "We as a culture believe that women who are sexual deserve what they get, are asking to be raped.".
Abortion is illegal in the Philippines. Unsafe abortions render women vulnerable not only to infections and other health complications, but even to death. Because these abortions are carried out in illegal abortion clinics there is no record of how many women and children, if any, die each year as a result.
According to ECPAT chair Ron O'Grady, the chances of full rehabilitation are slim for children who have been sexually abused repeatedly. He adds: "We know that those children who are kept in brothels die quite young. (They) die in many cases before they have had a chance to live. We know they die from AIDS, from drugs and from committing suicide."
What sex tourism really means to the "real girls" is reflected in Poppy's words, captured by Ron O'Grady in his book, The Child and the Tourist:
I found myself dancing at a club at the age of 11... I have had different kinds of customers, foreigners and Filipinos. I tried suicide but it didn't work so I turned to drugs. I want to die before my next birthday.
In the exploitative system of prostitution, bar owners and pimps make the most profit while the women are exposed to abuse, physical, emotional and psychological trauma.
The absence of punitive measures for the male customers enables them to abuse the women in prostitution.
The problem is compounded by the fact that society, even the church, discriminates against women in prostitution.
Pimps bend the girls to their will, drug them. Degrading and humiliating the girls is at the discretion of their international clients. After two, three years the girls have lost their health and beauty. From then on, they are on offer at bargain price to local clients. The humiliation these girls have to go through often drives them into self-destruction. With no self-esteem their lives are on a dead-end journey. With drug addiction, unwanted pregnancies, venereal disease and AIDS the girls go to rack and ruin.
At least 90 percent of HIV positive people in Angeles city were female sex workers, according to a study of the Training, Research and Information for Development Specialists Foundation Inc. (Tridev).
CATW, the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women lists numerous issues and adversities faced by women and girls in prostitution:
Problems Related to Health include: lack of comprehensive health services, not just on sexual health; women’s lack of knowledge of health issues; fear of doctors or medical professionals; and or risky health practices; drug use and risk from drugged client expensive and compulsory check-ups for issuance of health certificates; compulsory HIV tests and the lack of pre-test and post-test counseling, as well as the violation of confidentiality (publicly announced results) or no results given; lack of funds for hospitalization and health emergencies; forced intake of contraceptive pills and unsafe abortions.
Problems Related to the Law or the Legal System
- Abusive, discriminatory conduct of raids, including arrests, maltreatment during raids or while in custody, extortion for release.
- Women held in debt bondage.
- Restriction of movement.
- Anti-vagrancy laws are unconstitutional, i.e. they violate equal protection and are classist and sexist in their enforcement.
Problems Related to Services
- Lack of education, especially in the areas of literacy, rights awareness, and peer education.
- Women have the status of criminals.
- Inadequate support systems in the areas of counseling and legal assistance, as well as child care.
- The need for skills development, such as organizational and management skills, leadership, negotiation and documentation.
Problems Related to Violence Against Women
- Trafficking in women by syndicates that practice active, deceptive recruitment.
- Economic abuse, i.e. no work, no food and poverty.
- A high rate of rape.
- Domestic violence.
- Violence caused by barangay (village) officials (fees, competition, harassment).
- Harmful physical, emotional, and psychological effects on the women.
- The “salvaging” or summary execution, especially of sick women.
Organized crime of child trafficking
A special BBC investigation exposes the organized crime syndicates that control the child sex slavery trafficking in the Philippines.The investigation reported there could be as many as 100,000 Philippine children involved in the local sex trade. This crime gang has a system similar to that of the Sicilian Mafia
Mafia
The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...
, Yakuza
Yakuza
, also known as , are members of traditional organized crime syndicates in Japan. The Japanese police, and media by request of the police, call them bōryokudan , literally "violence group", while the yakuza call themselves "ninkyō dantai" , "chivalrous organizations". The yakuza are notoriously...
and Triads. They often start as a trainee field recruiter, to running individual brothels, and then to overseeing an entire network - an underworld association. Local NGO`S refer to the organized crime syndicates as the sex mafia.
From the Philippines, girls are delivered to prison-like brothels in the North America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East.
The organizers of the trade are varied, as well: it's a strange alliance of the Japanese Yakuza, Chinese Triad, Russian and Italian Mafia, eastern European gangsters, Albanian kingpins, Latin American cartels, Nigerian warlords, Asian businessmen and American financiers and subcontractors.
Cecilia Flores Oebande, the president of Visayan Forum Foundation, says child trafficking is a lucrative business.
"It is, next to drugs and arms smuggling, the second most profitable business here in the Philippines".
Prosecutions
A court in Zamboanga City sentenced a member of a trafficking syndicate to life imprisonment in March 2007 for having recruited six victims and peddled them to a brothel in Sandakan, Malaysia.In 2006, law enforcement agencies filed 60 new trafficking cases with the Department of Justice. In 2005, police and the DOJ charged a police officer for allegedly trafficking minors for sexual exploitation at his Manila nightclub.
In 2006, law enforcement agencies filed 60 new trafficking cases with the Department of Justice.
Ferdinand Lavin, chief of the National Bureau of Investigation Anti-Human Trafficking Division, states there were 168 alleged cases of trafficking in 2008, a 60 percent increase over the previous year, with four convictions.
The Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons states, “Trials often take years to conclude because of a lack of judges and courtrooms, high turnover [of judges], and non-continuous trials, which cause some victims to withdraw their testimony.”
The US State Department says that judges in the Philippines often have a poor understanding of the anti-trafficking law.
Revised Penal Code Article 202
Revised Penal Code Article 341
Penal Code article 341 imposes a penalty to any person who “shall engage in the business or shall profit by prostitution or shall enlist the services of any other person for the purpose of prostitution."Republic Act 9208
Section 4 of Republic Act 9208, otherwise known as the "Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2003Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2003
The Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2003, R.A. No. 9208, is a consolidation of Senate Bill No. 2444 and House Bill No. 4432...
", deems it unlawful for any person, natural or juridical, to commit any of the following acts:
Republic Act 7610 - Special Protection of Children Against Child Abuse, Exploitation and Discrimination Act
Republic Act 6955 - Mail-order brides
RA 6955 basically declares as unlawful "the practice of matching Filipino women for marriage to foreign nationals on a mail order basis."Republic Act 8042 - Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos Act
RA 8042 (Long title: An Act to Institute the Policies of Overseas Employment and Establish a Higher Standard of Protection and Promotion of The Welfare of Migrant Workers, Their Families and Overseas Filipinos in Distress, and for Other Purposes.) The act contains provisions which regulate the recruitment of overseas workers; mandate establishment of a mechanism for free legal assistance for victims of illegal recruitment; direct all embassies and consular offices to issue travel advisories or disseminate information on labor and employment conditions, migration realities and other facts; regulate repatriation of workers in ordinary cases and provide a mechanism for repatriation in extraordinary cases; mandate establishment of a Migrant Workers and Other Overseas Filipinos Resource Center to provide social services to returning worker and other migrants; mandate the establishment of a Migrant Workers Loan Guarantee Fund to provide pre-departure and family assistance loans; establishes a legal assistance fund for migrant workers; and other provisions related to Filipino migrant workers. The act, approved on June 7, 1995, mandates that pursuant to the objectives of deregulation the Department of Labor and EmploymentDepartment of Labor and Employment (Philippines)
The Philippines' Department of Labor and Employment is the executive department of the Philippine Government mandated to formulate policies, implement programs and services, and serve as the policy-coordinating arm of the Executive Branch in the field of labor and employment...
(DOLE) shall, within a period of five (5) years, phase-out the regulatory functions of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA).
House Resolution No. 779
House of Representatives of the PhilippinesHouse of Representatives of the Philippines
The House of Representatives of the Philippines is the lower chamber of the...
Citizen's Battle Against Corruption
Citizen's Battle Against Corruption
The Citizen's Battle Against Corruption is a political party in the Philippines.In the 2004 elections for the House of Representatives CIBAC got 495,193 votes and one seat....
(CIBAC) Reps. Emmanuel Joel Villanueva and Cinchona Cruz-Gonzales, on September 24, filed House Resolution No. 779 to intensify the fight against human trafficking on all levels, from legislation, policy formulation, enforcement and prosecution, to rehabilitation and support for victims. Villanueva said: "Human trafficking is fast becoming a major transnational crime next only to the illegal drugs trade and illegal arms trade. Most of the victims of trafficking are being exploited as commercial sex workers, forced laborers and even unwilling organ donors. We must consider the reports of the victims that lack of funds and resources are key problems in the full implementation of the Anti-Trafficking of Persons Act, including the necessary support and protection." The National Bureau of Investigation (Philippines) reported "more than 400,000 persons from both government and non-government organizations who are victims of trafficking and almost 100,000 of these victims are children." Cruz-Gonzales said: "As of last year, only a little over a thousand cases were officially reported."
Crimes against humanity
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has designated human Trafficking as a crime against humanity.In 2002, the International Criminal Court
International Criminal Court
The International Criminal Court is a permanent tribunal to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression .It came into being on 1 July 2002—the date its founding treaty, the Rome Statute of the...
(ICC) was established in The Hague
The Hague
The Hague is the capital city of the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. With a population of 500,000 inhabitants , it is the third largest city of the Netherlands, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam...
(Netherlands) and the Rome Statute
Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court
The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court is the treaty that established the International Criminal Court . It was adopted at a diplomatic conference in Rome on 17 July 1998 and it entered into force on 1 July 2002. As of 13 October 2011, 119 states are party to the statute...
provides for the ICC to have jurisdiction over crimes against humanity. For the purpose of this Statute, "crime against humanity" means any of the following acts when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack:
Batingaw Network
On September 15, 2007, the Children and Youth Secretariat of the Anti-Child Pornography Alliance (ACPA-Pilipinas) launched Batingaw Network to protect and save children from all abuses and exploitations. It is the biggest formation against child pornographyChild pornography
Child pornography refers to images or films and, in some cases, writings depicting sexually explicit activities involving a child...
(cyber
Cyber
Cyber may refer to:* Cyber-, a common prefix* Cybergoth* CDC Cyber, a range of mainframe computers* Cyber Acoustics, a brand of computer hardware* Cyber Missionary* Cybersex * Cyberitis * Cyber...
-sex
Sex
In biology, sex is a process of combining and mixing genetic traits, often resulting in the specialization of organisms into a male or female variety . Sexual reproduction involves combining specialized cells to form offspring that inherit traits from both parents...
dens
Dens
Dens may refer to:* Den *Dens , also known as odontoid process or odontoid peg*Tooth...
; Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
shops
Online shop
Online shopping is the process whereby consumers directly buy goods or services from a seller in real-time, without an intermediary service, over the Internet. It is a form of electronic commerce...
with pornographic cubicles). It declared September 28 as the "National Day of Awareness and Unity against Child Pornography."
Senate hearing
On September 15, 2004, the first hearing was held on escort services. http://www.senate.gov.ph/13th_congress/spot_reports/LABOR%20-%20SEPT.15%20HEARING.pdf followed by a second hearing on September 22, 2004, attended by well-known movie personalities http://www.senate.gov.ph/13th_congress/spot_reports/LABOR.%20-SEPT.%2022%20HEARING.pdf and a third hearing, attended by representatives from KTVs. http://www.senate.gov.ph/13th_congress/spot_reports/HEARING%20REPORT%20-%203%20ESCORT%20SERVICE.pdfSee also
- Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2003Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2003The Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2003, R.A. No. 9208, is a consolidation of Senate Bill No. 2444 and House Bill No. 4432...
- Violence against women in the PhilippinesViolence against women in the Philippines-Statistics On Violence Against Filipina Women:There are different trends in the number of violence against women cases from different government agencies...
External links
- Gabriela network
- Humantrafficking.org, Places to report Human Trafficking in the Philippines
- BBC Investigation Into Organized Crime Control of the Sex Slavery Trade in the Philippines
- http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/82902.pdf
- Hope In Heaven - a documentary