TRAFFICKING OF CHILDREN AND WOMEN

It is realistic to observe that even before working outside the country, many young women and children have at least ventured in cities away from home. Many eventually seek lucrative opportunities overseas, after gaining some experience and contact in bigger local cities. However, many also are freshly recruited from remote country-sides even without such experiential familiarity. In all these methods of labor migration, trafficking by its very deceptive modus operandi is undoubtedly among the most alarming mode of facilitation.

Trafficking is a crosscutting and complex issue that exacerbates the already multiplying problems of children. Recent studies have shown that many victims of illegal trafficking fall not only to prostitution but also to worst forms of exploitative child labor such as child domestic work.

• Connection of Child Domestic work and Trafficking
• Case Story(Rosalie)
• Baseline Statistics at the Manila North Harbor
• The Halfway Houses in Manila North Harbor and Sasa Port in Davao City

CONNECTION OF CHILD DOMESTIC WORK AND TRAFFICKING

There do exist many efforts against trafficking especially against prostitution but few have focused into the elements of child trafficking that are rampant in domestic work. A huge number are recruited through the combination of deception, false promises and cash incentives. Most traffickers also use child domestic work as initial recruitment alibi to parents who easily believe that domestic work is safest for their children. But once in transit, their children simply vanish into destination cities offering a myriad of low-paid and often illegal opportunities to earn money - from factory jobs and domestic service to bar work and prostitution.

While poverty, lack of work opportunities, the desire to help parents, and discontinued education are the most commonly cited reasons for entry to domestic work, young girls are also attracted by the simple methods of recruitment, �One doesn�t need to have higher skills, nor is required to submit report cards, bio-data, etc. to be hired immediately.� Town mates, siblings and relatives with established contacts with employers in the city, recruit a majority of these workers who guarantee that the decent facilitation is risk-free.

Others say that they agreed to work as house helpers as stepping-stone towards other jobs such as factory work, �to gain experience, familiarity and contacts in the city.� This predirection to domestic work makes it easy for recruiters to lure young women into prostitution and other worst forms of child labor.

The cultural acceptance to migration also lends a higher degree of acceptability to recruitment for domestic work in the communities. Community members believe that families with children working away from home are moving up the social ladder. Infusing cash into the cycle of debt and bondage to the farm raises their social status. Remittances take care of emergency expenses of their families such as medical access, paying tuition fees, or as basic as buying rice.

It is not therefore surprising that of the yearly average of 3-5 million passengers going through the Manila North Harbor, more than half are estimated to be women and children in search of work. The human Diaspora pumps day and night, powered by a well-organized network of contacts oiled by good connections between unscrupulous agencies and government authorities. Most of the contracts and birth certificates are often fabricated to attest to the lawfulness of their recruitment.

Those who are victims of illegal recruiters are forbidden from contacting people outside the group. They frequently have only sketchy information on who will meet them: just a name, or a picture, or an old phone number. Some are stranded for hours, some for days, and some permanently. Fetchers do not show on time, or are misinformed about arrival schedules; many migrants simply have no contacts and linger at the ports; some cannot afford return passage; fixers and robbers steal their money. Few opt to return, saying that it is �shameful to go back hungry and penniless.�

Scheming taxi drivers, fellow passengers, and even illegal recruiters posing as social workers or good Samaritans prey on them. Port authorities cannot intervene unless a passenger complains. As they say, �We are in the business of moving people, not hampering their exercise of their constitutional right to freedom of movement.� Thus, they can intercept at the ports of origin under-age passengers suspected of being illegally transported. But they cannot apprehend perpetrators. They can shelter these passengers only for 24 hours, or until somebody legally claims them. Except for dining and waiting areas, ports lack facilities for stranded or intercepted passengers.

Once these children leave the port area or bus station, they may simply vanish, absorbed into invisible or illegal work. It becomes nearly impossible to reach them and monitor their situation. Services should be available and intervention should be done in these places, before they are moved beyond the reach of services, of intervention, and of all our good intentions.

Setting up catchment mechanisms in transit points is thus very crucial. If children could not be totally prevented, they should at least have some information and contact numbers in case they decide to break out from the system of trafficking.

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CASE STORY (ROSALIE)

For Rosalie, then 15, she felt it was too late for her to realize she made a mistake of going with her friends. She recalls that same afternoon when she came from school that her friend asked her if she wanted to come to Manila. Still in uniform, she agreed to go with them right there and then. When they arrived in the pier, her friend introduced her to their facilitator. Doubt started to sink in when she began to think of going home to her grandmother. �Gusto kong pumiglas pero naisip ko babalik na lang ako pagkatapos ng isang taon (I wanted to run, but I said to myself I also want to work and probably I can come back after a year),� she remembers justifying to herself.

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BASELINE STATISTICS AT THE MANILA NORTH HARBOR

Based on the research entitled, �Women, Children and Internal Trafficking for Labor: A Situational Analysis at the Manila Port.� (UNICEF & Visayan Forum Foundation. April 2000.unpublished), the profile of 95 respondents:

1. Age, Gender and Civil Status

Respondents are very young, mostly female 15 - 22 years old. Some are only 14 years old, while others are as old as 50. Most are single while 26.66% of the women are married. About 25% of the children are male.

2. Educational Levels

Among children, 60% reached only elementary grade, while 37.14% are in high school. A majority of the women (43.33%) finished high school. Almost all respondents are no longer studying. More than half said they may no longer study. Most dropped out for reasons of work.

3. Ethnicity and Household Characteristics

A majority comes from poor families in Mindanao, followed by Visayas provinces. Most come from farming families with an average of 6 to 10 siblings.

4. Work History and Profile

Many started to work at a very young age. Some 85.71% among children while 65.21% among women have worked as housemaids in the provinces prior to migrating in Manila.

Most migrants are first-timers (first time travelers to Manila). Seven out of ten (71.43%) among children, while six out of ten (61.66%) women, say it�s their first time to come to Manila. The rest say they have worked as housemaids in the city before. More than half of respondents started to migrate below 20 years of age.

Many expect to find jobs here in Manila (children 85.71%, women, 92.30%), more than half of whom preferring domestic work. Focused group discussions (FGDs) would reveal than such preference connotes that domestic work is seen as a stepping-stone towards other jobs such as factory work.

To help their family is the primary motive of children (68.57%) to migrate. One of three women (33.33%) cited the same reason. But interestingly, they also have other significant reasons such as: higher paying jobs (26.66%); want to see Manila (13.33%); and hard life in the province (10%).

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