Filipino sex prisoner thought she was in France (Part 1)
Gemma Luz Corotan
Inquirer
SHE is only 17 but has the knowing look and corrupted innocence of someone much older.
Thin and frail, she laughs easily. But it is a laughter of cynicism and of one bitterly disappointed with a world from which she expected much, and which she will never see quite the same way again.
Let's call her Maria. She and three others like her recently returned to the Philippines after being rescued from hell.
Three months ago, Maria landed in war-torn Ivory Coast in the continent of Africa and thought she was in France--just one of many unsuspecting Filipino women and children who challenge and cross prohibited borders to enter the lair of the world's most vicious trafficking and prostitution syndicates.
It was only a month after she was sold repeatedly to countless men that she thought to ask a Lebanese customer: "Where am I really?"
She was told that she was in Cote d'Ivoire, not in France, but in West Africa.
Maria is one of 26 young Filipino women rescued by an antitrafficking team from the Anti-Slavery International, Interpol and the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights from bars in a red-light district in Abidjan.
The team coordinated with the Visayan Forum Foundation Inc., a nongovernment organization working to help Filipino trafficking victims.
The club owners--a Filipino and a Chinese national who kept Maria and three other girls as sex prisoners for hire in a bar and brothel--were convicted and ordered by the court to pay damages.
"It is the first successful conviction of international human trafficking involving Filipinos," said Ma. Cecilia Flores Oebanda, executive director of the Visayan Forum Foundation.
But this is small comfort to Maria, who still remembers the physical abuse she endured in the hands of her captors.
On her first day after a grueling flight that passed through Dubai, tired and confused by the sea of black faces around her, in what she thought was Europe, she was sold to her first customer, a French soldier.
She would be sold and resold 80 times more in the course of three months.
"We were forced to have sex with customers even if we were menstruating. One time, I was sold to an Indian national who took nude pictures of me and a video while we were having sex. I was also forced to have an abortion," Maria said.
Child slavery
Cote d' Ivoire, or Ivory Coast, is famous for being the biggest supplier of cocoa worldwide, accounting for 43 percent of the cocoa used in chocolate products.
But international reaction was not so sweet after it was found that the world's most popular chocolate bars come from that country's cocoa plantations, which have the highest concentration of child slaves on the planet.
There are about 15,000 slaves, trafficked from within and other countries, who work in the cocoa, cotton and coffee farms in Ivory Coast, according to a Unicef study.
The children, aged between 9 and 16, are sold and made to work without pay for 80 to 100 hours a week, and beaten with sticks when they try to escape.
Ivory Coast again broke into the limelight when BBC reported the tragedy of 8-year-old Victoria Climbie, an Ivorian who was trafficked to London, subjected to seven months of torture, and died with 128 separate injuries.
"Hundreds of children from Ivory Coast and other West African countries are brought to Europe by distant relatives, forced to work as domestic slaves, beaten and abused and turned over to pedophiles as sexual playthings," the BBC report said.
Girls can even be bought for $10 at a market in Abidjan, the capital, like potatoes in a basket, the report added.
Human Rights Watch estimates that as many as 700,000 women are moved across international borders by well-organized trafficking rings.
Trafficking consists primarily of the movement of people from one country to another for the purpose of forced labor and sexual exploitation.
Ivorian women and children are trafficked to Spain, Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Syria and Libya, according to the US State Department Trafficking in Persons report in 2006.
"The victims trafficked to Ivory Coast are from Burkina Faso, Ghana, Liberia, North Africa, Ukraine, China and the Philippines," the report said.
$17-B industry
The crime of human trafficking carries a prison term of only six months.
Because it is high in profit and low on penalties, it is one of the most irresistible illegal trades in the world, next only to trafficking of money, drugs and guns.
It is now reportedly a $17-billion-a-year industry, with the money to be made now exceeding the arms trade.
Human traffickers can make as much as 5 to 20 times what they paid for a woman or a child because unlike drugs, women and children can be resold and there is lesser risk of being caught than if they were selling drugs or arms.
"In a typical trafficking scenario in Africa, the recruiter may earn from $50 to $1,000 for a child delivered to its employer," said Kathleen Fitzgibbon, senior reporting officer for Africa to the US State Department.
A child trafficked to the United States from Africa might net a trafficker $10,000 to $20,000, according to the US Immigration and Naturalization Service.
A madam pays a minimum of $12,000 to the recruiter who spends a minimum of $2,000 to bribe government officials, procure travel documents and safe houses, and transport the victims to their destination.
The madam then sells the woman or child into prostitution as many times as she can to collect on debts of up to $50,000.
The case of the 26 Filipino women rescued in Abidjan has trained the spotlight on Africa as possibly one of the major destinations of trafficking victims from the Philippines.
"We are now looking closely at Africa like never before," said Oebanda.
Many still in Abidjan
As of December 2003, the Philippines has sent some 7.76 million Filipinos to work abroad. It is said to be one of the leading source-countries in the world for migrant workers, along with Mexico.
Many of the workers are undocumented, or considered victims of smuggling and human trafficking.
The United States, Singapore, Canada, Japan, Malaysia, Korea, the Middle East and Europe are the major destinations of undocumented Filipino workers, according to the Philippine Overseas Employment Agency.
Of this famous flood of huddled masses, it was previously thought that only a trickle made it to Africa. But no longer.
"There are still many of us left in Ivory Coast. Many, many more," said Maria, holding her body close as if she were ashamed of it.
According to Maria and the three other girls who have since gone back to their respective provinces, there are seven bars in Abidjan--the Jam, Lido, World Cup, Meridien, Textmate, Mabuhay and Maharlika.
These bars all employ Filipino "guest relations officers" and are owned and managed by Filipino women with foreigner-husbands and -boyfriends, Maria said.
Only the Filipino GROs at the Jam, Lido and World Cup bars were rescued, the girls said. Those working at the Textmate, Mabuhay, Maharlika and Meridien and many "freelancers" were not.
Pattern of collusion
In Abidjan alone, there are still some 46 Filipino women left, the girls estimated.
The Visayan Forum Foundation is readying charges against the girls' recruiters and those who aided and abetted them.
The girls' cases share a pattern with many trafficking cases, including the alleged collusion of personnel from the Department of Foreign Affairs, the National Statistics Office, the Bureau of Immigration and the Ninoy Aquino International Airport.
Maria said her application for a passport was initially denied because of incomplete documents and her status as a minor.
"They paid a fixer for my passport," she said. "I also told them I could not leave the country because of my age (17). They said they knew someone from the airport who could help."
The recruiters made good on their word.
On the day of their departure from the Philippines, Maria and "Precy" were met by "airport personnel" who gave them a sketch of the various entry and exit points in the process of departure, and were told where to fall in line for a speedy check-in and validation of their passports.
"Sabi niya huwag daw kaming tatanga-tanga at baka mahuli daw kami (We were told not to be dumb or we would get caught)," Maria said.
First try
Maria and Precy made it through immigration on their first attempt to leave their native land.
But on their way to the departure gate, they were stopped by airport staff who asked them where they were going and then examined their passports.
The girls nervously presented the letter sent by "Gina," their prospective employer, inviting them to the wedding of a relative in Africa.
They were stopped from boarding their plane after they were investigated and found to be minors.
But their recruiters' connections were powerful. Two days later, Maria and Precy were able to leave without mishap.(To be concluded)
Source: Philippine Daily Inquirer
top
26 rescued, one found in a closet-sized room (Part 2)
Gemma Luz Corotan
Inquirer
MANILA, Philippines -- Alfonso Cusi, the general manager of the Manila International Airport Authority, denied the involvement of airport personnel in human trafficking.
“There are many people inside the airport, and any one of them can be mistaken for airport personnel. We are part of the government antihuman trafficking task force and we continue to aggressively investigate and clean up our ranks,” he said.
Cusi also defended the passenger assistance service at the airport, which is open to anyone who will pay a fee of P800 and has been criticized as a means for passengers with invalid documents to get past immigration controls.
Said Cusi: “The documents of those who want to avail themselves of the passenger assistance service are carefully screened. They also line up and go through the whole process like everyone else, but with our physical assistance. It is especially necessary for disabled people, the elderly, those with children, and not just diplomats and VIPs. Besides, [those who assist] are not given the power to influence immigration.”
But case files reviewed by this writer showed that the “escort service” at the airport had been used and abused many times to sneak out passengers with invalid documents.
“It is not just airport personnel who are involved,” said an employee who has been working at the airport for 12 years, and who spoke on condition of anonymity.
“Any government agency with a presence in the airport is involved in any case of trafficking because passengers have to pass through all those channels. ‘May mga natimbrehan na’ [Key people are notified] from the check-in, immigration, airport police, all the way to the departure gate. You cannot leave out anyone or they will squeal on you. To prevent this, everyone should be happy. ‘Lahat dapat makinabang sa grasya’ [Everyone should have a share of the gravy].”
Only one bagman
According to the airport employee, there is only one bagman -- the person with the closest link to the passenger. The payoff is distributed when the passenger has successfully boarded the plane.
“Corruption is the norm among government agencies at the airport. How can you report your colleagues when next time, it could be your turn? How can you go against the norm?” the employee said.
A report by the National Police Commission (Napolcom) states: “Syndicates pay off vulnerable immigration, customs and police officers to facilitate the victim’s departure from the country to his country of destination. Other officers who might be susceptible to such corruption are airport personnel, airline personnel, officers of the Department of Labor and Employment, Philippine Overseas Employment Agency, Overseas Workers Welfare Administration, and National Bureau of Investigation, and immigration personnel at the ports of exit and entry.”
The cost of trafficking one person out of the country is anywhere between P1,000 and P400,000, depending on the destination, the Napolcom said. A large percentage is devoted mainly to bribing government personnel.
Typical profile
Along with three other Filipino girls, 17-year-old “Maria” recently returned to the Philippines from the Ivory Coast with a harrowing story.
Maria fits the typical profile of a trafficking victim: a school dropout and looking for a job, from 12 to 22 years old, a first-timer in the big city, and willing to take risks.
She is one of four children in a typical family usually supported by an overseas worker -- in this case, her sister’s husband, who sent P15,000 a month.
The crumbs that fell from her sister’s table were barely enough to sustain them all, and in Maria’s young mind, the idea formed that an overseas job was her way out of that life.
She dropped out when she was in her third year in high school and stowed away to Manila, moving from one domestic job to another until her itinerant life led her to Manila’s Tondo district
There she met “Precy,” who would become her bosom buddy.
The two girls eventually met “Boboy,” a gay man who asked them if they wanted to work abroad. When he told them he could get them jobs in France as entertainers, they instantly agreed.
Their employer, “Gina,” a Filipino woman whom they met on the Internet, arranged their documents. Last Dec. 17, they were on their way to “France.”
At the airport, Maria and Precy were given their travel papers and work permits stating that they were going to work at a club in Trench Ville, France Amerique, Cote d’Ivoire.
Maria had no reason to believe that this was not France.
Taking off
When the plane rose, Maria felt like any other Filipino worker riding a plane for the first time and holding a ticket to a foreign land: Her life was finally taking off.
The dream started to unravel when Maria and Precy landed at the airport in Abidjan, the capital of Ivory Coast. A black man escorted them through immigration -- a service for which they would later be charged P30,000.
Outside, Gina and her live-in partner, a Chinese national, waited.
Gina promptly confiscated their travel papers and said they owed her the sum of P100,000, and another P30,000 as “escort” fee.
Maria and Precy were loaded in a car and taken to a dark and dingy bar in the red-light district.
There, they met “Dana” and “Julie,” both 19, who had similarly been misled into coming to Africa.
4 others
Along with Dana and Julie, “Luisa,” 26, and “Melissa,” 19, were recruited by an acquaintance, who also later introduced them to Gina through the Internet. They were promised work as entertainers in France.
They were told that they would receive a monthly salary of P17,000, and that their work did not involve prostitution.
When they landed, Gina confiscated their passports and told them that they would not be paid for a year while they settled their debts.
She also gave them a blank paper and told them to sign it. They complied.
The next day, Dana, Julie, Luisa and Melissa started working in their uniform, a mini dress provided for them.
The bar had only recently resumed business operations after the death of one other Filipino woman. It was open from 7 p.m. until 1 a.m.
The four women comprised the work force. They were told to flirt with and encourage customers to order whisky to increase the bar’s income.
Customers were allowed to take them out for a minimum P4,000 and a maximum P8,000 (for overnight service). They got a cut of P350 from these amounts.
They were told to return to the bar at exactly 7 a.m., or they would be fined P5,000.
For short-term service, the customer was charged P1,000, with free use of a room upstairs. The women received no commission from this.
Luisa was grateful to one customer, a Korean national who gave her a tip of P10,000, which she sent to her family in the Philippines.
Hunger
Most of the customers were Taiwanese, Korean, Indian and Lebanese. Some were abusive, and the women were either physically hurt or fined if they refused to go out.
The women were hungry most of the time because they had little money to buy food. They had to provide for their own basic needs, including items for personal hygiene and makeup.
Unable to bear their terrible state, the women sought help from their families in the Philippines.
Luisa’s husband and Melissa’s mother sent the required amount to buy their freedom.
By December 2006, Luisa and Melissa were home.
The families of Dana and Julie sought the assistance of Philippine authorities in Manila, but according to them, no intervention was made.
In December 2006, Maria and Precy joined Dana and Julie. It took three months before they could get away.
Trapped
The girls did not dare escape, preferring the brothel from the bloodshed and chaos in the streets.
Four years of conflict between government troops in the south and rebel forces in the north had created a climate of fear and impunity in Ivory Coast.
“Wherever we went, we were told that we would still end up in the bar anyway, or another bar, or probably in prison, or dead,” Maria said.
The UN Operations for Ivory Coast and other human rights groups reported cases of summary executions, torture and other inhuman practices, denial of fair trial, abuse, rape and other acts of violence against women on both rebel and government sides.
People were killed in the streets as a matter of routine, and no one was apprehended.
Even government police solicited sexual favors from women in exchange for not being arrested.
People had to pay bribes or whatever they could offer, or face the confiscation of their documents, harassment and physical abuse.
According to reports by the Ivorian League for Human Rights and the Action for the Defense of Human Rights, police frequently entered the homes of foreigners, took them to local police stations and extorted small amounts for alleged minor offenses.
Police were indifferent to cases of abuse and violence against women, considering this a family, and not a police, matter.
AIDS
A 10,000-strong contingent of French and UN troops sent to prevent clashes between government and rebel forces only increased the demand for human flesh.
Ivory Coast has the highest rate of AIDS infection in West Africa, creating a demand for young sex partners, especially virgins from other countries like the Philippines who are least exposed to the deadly virus.
Many Ivorian men are said to believe in the myth that having sex with virgins protects them from AIDS and increases their vigor and vitality.
There is also a growing demand among older men in Africa for young virgin brides.
Maria and Precy, as well as Dana and Julie, were exposed to the virus as a matter of routine each time they were sold.
“They used us frequently without condoms. They don’t like condoms. The price was higher without,” Maria said.
Nongovernmental organizations have reported that the civil conflict only tended to encourage the spread of AIDS.
“There are no condoms to be found in the area, and the health infrastructure is in total disarray,” reported an AIDS clinic volunteer who had to flee because of the fighting.
Rescue
On Feb. 22, Maria, Precy, Dana and Julie were rescued through the efforts of the Anti-Slavery International (ASI), United Nations High Commission for Human Rights, Interpol and Visayan Forum Foundation Inc.
A French customer of Precy’s who became her boyfriend initiated the rescue.
She told him of the slave-like conditions in the bar, and the man explored the Internet for an agency that could help. He found the ASI site and reported the girls’ case.
The ASI in turn reported it to the Visayan Forum Foundation, and a strategy for rescue was planned along with the other agencies.
Maria was the last one in the bar to be rescued because she was hidden in a closet-sized room at the back.
But the rescue team had known from advance information that there was one more girl left. Its members fanned out, surrounded the bar -- and spotted a handkerchief being waved from a tiny window.
They finally found Maria.
The team raided the other bars on the strip and found 22 more Filipino women.
Maria, Precy, Dana and Julie filed a case against the bar owners, who were convicted and ordered by the court to pay damages.
Why some girls stayed
Of the 26 Filipino women rescued in Ivory Coast, only the four were convinced to file charges against the bar owners and eventually return to the Philippines.
The rest who were left face an uncertain future.
Based on studies, they are likely to be trafficked again and again from one country to another in a maze of syndicates in a dozen countries linked by a chain of middlemen.
Many stay because of fear of reprisal from the syndicates that are reported to be in the equally vicious trade in arms and narcotics.
Some may return to their villages to recruit young girls with promises of easy money. (This was the case of Gina, who had freed herself from her own contract by promising her madam to bring in more girls from the Philippines.)
Some do not return because they have nothing to come home to.
Many more are kept captive in small rooms, feasted on by unknown men, in countries they do not even know.
In Calbayog, capital of Samar province, social workers tell the story of a village whose population of girls was practically decimated by recruiters.
Most of the girls never came back, their relatives say. They packed their bags, boarded jeepneys and buses, and were gone.
Source: Philippine Daily Inquirer
top
To hell and back
Inquirer
MANILA, Philippines -- She thought she was in France, and “Maria” would not have known any better had she not asked a customer where she was. He told her she was in Abidjan, the capital city of Cote d’Ivoire in West Africa.
Actually she was in hell. And how she got there is a story of poverty, betrayal, exploitation, corruption and cruelty rolled into one.
Maria, one of four children of a poor family living off the earnings of a brother-in-law working overseas, was a high school junior when she ran away from home in search of a better life in the big city. While working as a domestic helper in Tondo, Manila, she met someone who offered her a job as an entertainer in France. A week before Christmas last year, the 17-year-old was on board a plane bound for Abidjan together with a friend. At the airport, they were met by their employer -- a Filipina named “Gina” -- who promptly took away their passports and told them they owed her P130,000 each, an amount they had to settle in full before they would get any pay. They were brought to a bar in the capital’s red-light district, given mini skirts and instructions on how to entertain patrons. The next day, she was sold to a French soldier. He was the first of some 80 customers she was forced to have sex with in the next three months, until her rescue last February by an international anti-trafficking team from Anti-Slavery International, Interpol, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the Visayas Forum Foundation Inc.
Maria was one of 26 Filipinas who were rescued by the team, but only four of them returned to the Philippines. The rest opted to stay in the strife-torn country, either fearing reprisal from the syndicates that brought them there or preferring the indignity and hardships of the sex trade to the hunger and deprivation awaiting them at home.
Gemma Luz Corotan, who wrote the special report on Maria’s experience in the flesh trade for the Inquirer, cited estimates made by Human Rights Watch placing at 700,000 the number of women being trafficked annually by international syndicates. The case of the 26 Filipinas in Abidjan suggests that a sizeable fraction of that number could be coming from the Philippines. For if dozens of Filipinas could be forced to work in brothels in a country that perhaps 99 percent of Filipinos have not heard of, where on this planet are our women not being sold?
Unless it has become official policy to let any man, woman or child go abroad and earn a living by whatever means, the government should act promptly to stop the trafficking of Filipino women and children. Of course, it would be impossible to patrol our borders, but the government certainly can stop women like Maria from being sold abroad.
Maria’s case highlights how easy it is for the syndicates to move women out of the country. As Corotan pointed out, Maria fits the profile of a trafficking victim: a school dropout looking for a job, between 12 and 22 years of age, new in the city and eager to take risks. That should have been the signal to scrutinize her application for a passport very closely, but then after being denied at first, she got her passport anyway. The first time she and her friend tried to leave, they were turned away by airport officials on the ground that they were minors. But like before, that problem was quickly fixed, and two days later they were on their flight.
How did their recruiters do it? With the collusion of corrupt officials, of course. Corotan quoted an airport employee as saying that when it comes to human trafficking, every government agency that has representatives at the airport would have to be involved because passengers have to go through all of them. The National Police Commission has said in a report that “syndicates pay off vulnerable immigration, customs and police officers to facilitate the victims' departure.” It added that the payoffs could include personnel of other offices assigned to the airport.
If government intends to stop human trafficking, it can start by driving out and jailing the members of the syndicates operating at the airport and their cohorts. They can begin with the case of Maria. She and her friend helped send Gina and her Chinese live-in partner to jail in Cote d’Ivoire. The two girls should also be able to help Philippine authorities send their co-conspirators here to prison for as long as 20 years.
Source: Philippine Daily Inquirer
top
US to assist Manila’s fight against human trafficking
UNITED States Ambassador Kristie Kenney yesterday has vowed to extend financial and technical assistance to the government in its fight against the menace of human trafficking, wherein thousands of Filipino women fall prey to international white slavery.
Kenney, together with Manila International Airport Authority general manager Alfonso Cusi, Visayan Forum Foundation president Ma. Cecilia Oebanda and Assistant Chief Prosecutor Severino Gana Jr., led the capsule-laying ceremony for the construction of a halfway house called “Bahay Silungan sa Paliparan” in Parañaque City.
“Here in Naia, we are serious to curb trafficking in persons and help victims in recovering from their ordeal. Let Bahay Silungan be our modest contribution towards this end,” Cusi said.
The authority and the Visayan Foundation have signed a memorandum of agreement to establish the facility to combat human smuggling, using Manila as both the transit and destination.
‘‘While there are no exact data on the magnitude of the problem, government agencies have been instituting measures to check the trafficking of Filipinos to Malaysia, Hong Kong, Brunei, Japan, Korea, the Middle East, Europe, and the United States,” Cusi said.
Meanwhile, Oebanda said “human trafficking is alive and well and is pervasive even in tightly controlled transit points such as airports and sea ports... There is a need to work closely with government authorities to tighten the noose on traffickers who profit a hefty sum at the expense of innocent Filipino women, men and children.”
Based on the US government’s Trafficking in Person statistics, 600,000 to 800,000 were moved across transnational borders worldwide.
More than 80 percent of victims were women and that 70 percent were forced to work as prostitutes in brothels. Vito Barcelo
Source: Manila Standard Today
top
US Supports Halfway House in Philippines for Victims of Trafficking
MANILA — The American people are proud to support efforts against trafficking in persons in the Philippines – and most importantly, programs that support victims by giving them shelter and emotional care.
U.S. Ambassador Kristie A. Kenney demonstrated this support by giving the keynote remarks at the dedication and capsule laying ceremony for the Visayan Forum Foundation, Inc.’s (VFFI) new halfway house at Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) on Monday, May 7.
The halfway house, called Bahay Silungan sa Paliparan, is being built by the Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA) on airport grounds. VFFI will operate the house with financial support from the U.S. Government. The halfway house will shelter up to 40 people at a time, providing victims and potential victims of trafficking temporary shelter, counseling, repatriation, and legal advice. It will be completed in December 2007.
Alfonso G. Cusi, MIAA General Manager, and Ma. Cecilia Flores-Oebanda, VFFI President, also gave remarks and joined Ambassador Kenney at the construction site to bury a dedication capsule containing a May 7 newspaper, the memorandum of understanding for the house’s construction, and a copy of the architectural plans. Pictured above (L to R) are Herminia Castillo, Chairman, MIAA Gender and Development Committee: General Manager Cusi; Ambassador Kenney; VFF President Flores-Oebanda; Attorney Severino Gana, Jr., Assistant Chief State Prosecutor, Department of Justice; and Commissioner Napoleon Morales, Bureau of Customs.
“Human trafficking is a crime. It is a threat in every society,” said VFF President Flores-Oebanda. Referring to the new halfway house, she said she is optimistic that “there is a bright light of hope for change in the trafficking situation here.”
General Manager Cusi and Ambassador Kenney noted the partnership represented by the building of the halfway house, congratulating government agencies, private organizations, nonprofit groups, media, and private citizens for joining together in the fight against human trafficking. The crime of trafficking in persons is “not something that one voice alone can fix,” said Ambassador Kenney. “We need to let people who would be trafficked know that this is a crime and that they must say no; they must resist. We must protect innocent victims. Today we join forces to take another step forward in that protection to offer victims a safe place and a sanctuary.”
The battle against human trafficking is a high priority for the U.S. Government and the American people. Development assistance from the American people contributed more than $1 million to support anti-trafficking activities in the Philippines last year, including nearly $500,000 in financial support to the VFF to operate halfway houses at several ports throughout the country. The U.S. also trains law enforcement officials on evidence-gathering techniques for human trafficking cases; and partners with prosecutors on creating models for handling these sensitive cases.
In close cooperation with the Philippines, the U.S. Government will continue to be a strong and dedicated partner of the Filipino people in combating trafficking in persons.
Source: Davao Today
top
U.S. supports Halfway House at NAIA for victims of trafficking -- Ambassador Kenney
The American people are proud to support efforts against trafficking in persons in the Philippines – and most importantly, programs that support victims by giving them shelter and emotional care.
U.S. Ambassador Kristie A. Kenney demonstrated this support by giving the keynote remarks at the dedication and capsule laying ceremony for the Visayan Forum Foundation, Inc.’s (VFF) new halfway house at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) on Monday.
The halfway house, called Bahay Silungan sa Paliparan, is being built by the Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA) on airport grounds. VFF will operate the house with financial support from the U.S. Government.
The halfway house will shelter up to 40 people at a time, providing victims and potential victims of trafficking temporary shelter, counseling, repatriation, and legal advice. It will be completed in December 2007.
Alfonso G. Cusi, MIAA General Manager, and Ma. Cecilia Flores-Oebanda, VFF President, also gave remarks and joined Ambassador Kenney at the construction site to bury a dedication capsule containing a May 7 newspaper, the memorandum of understanding for the house’s construction, and a copy of the architectural plans.
“Human trafficking is a crime. It is a threat in every society,” said VFF President Flores-Oebanda. Referring to the new halfway house, she said she is optimistic that “there is a bright light of hope for change in the trafficking situation here.”
General Manager Cusi and Ambassador Kenney noted the partnership represented by the building of the halfway house, congratulating government agencies, private organizations, nonprofit groups, media, and private citizens for joining together in the fight against human trafficking. The crime of trafficking in persons is “not something that one voice alone can fix,” said Ambassador Kenney.
She added: “We need to let people who would be trafficked know that this is a crime and that they must say no; they must resist. We must protect innocent victims. Today we join forces to take another step forward in that protection to offer victims a safe place and a sanctuary.”
The battle against human trafficking is a high priority for the U.S. Government and the American people. Development assistance from the American people contributed more than a million dollars to support anti-trafficking activities in the Philippines last year, including nearly $ 500,000 in financial support to the VFF to operate halfway houses at several ports throughout the country.
The U.S. also trains law enforcement officials on evidence-gathering techniques for human trafficking cases; and partners with prosecutors on creating models for handling these sensitive cases.
In close cooperation with the Philippines, the U.S. Government will continue to be a strong and dedicated partner of the Filipino people in combating trafficking in persons. (PNA)
Source: news.balita.ph
top
IT helps human trafficking victims
06/08/2007 | 01:15 PM
In Southeast Asia alone, approximately 225,000 people, 80 percent of whom are women, are lured, deceived, blackmailed, or coerced from the relative safety of their homes with promises of work and a better life in the city, only to find themselves trapped in a life of virtual slavery. Their passports and any means of communications with their families are removed. The salaries stipulated by their contract are withheld. And they are forced to move around as zombies, serving their masters as domestic servants in a non-stop 12-hour grind before being sent back to their cramped quarters as chattel.
The less fortunate ones find themselves thrown into another kind of hell to prostitute their unwilling bodies to greedy lascivious customers in the whorehouses.
That is the heinous, underground, unspeakable but still ongoing and ultimately profitable trade known as human trafficking.
The Philippine Republic Act 9208, also known as the “Anti-trafficking in Persons Act of 2003," defines it as the “recruitment, transfer, or harboring or receipt of persons by means of threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, abduction, fraud, deception abuse of power or of position or taking advantage of the vulnerability of the person for the purpose of exploitation."
In the Philippines, the victims are commonly barrio girls from the provinces from ages of 12-22 years old. Many are either runaways and/or desperately looking for employment to stave off hunger for themselves and their families for at least another day. The promise of a job, any job, is irresistible; relocating them to a big city like Manila, which their dreams have unreasonably depicted to them as a bustling beehive of sophistication and streets of gold, is almost akin to being given the keys to the kingdom.
It takes only a few days before grim reality sets in, and paradise soon degenerates into a cruel prison of lifelong and inhuman servitude where no escape seems possible.
Rose (not her real name), a young lass from the province of Davao, was one fortunate exception. More important, she was not just able to escape, but as of this writing has found a way to improve her life by learning the basic computer software skills, through
Step-UP, a partnership program of Microsoft Philippines and the Visayan Forum Foundation.
step-UP is the latest local initiative under Unlimited Potential, Microsoft’s global program which focuses on improving lifelong learning for underserved young people and adults by providing technology skills through community-based organizations around the world. Microsoft Philippines has so far invested more than Php100 million in its existing Unlimited Potential programs, including Tulay: An Unlimited Potential Program for Overseas Filipino Workers, Pag-Asa: An Unlimited Potential Program for Amerasians; and Kapit-Bisig: An Unlimited Potential Program for NGOs.
The Visayan Forum Foundation is a private, non-profit NGO that works for the welfare of marginalized migrants to provide information and technology (IT) skills training to underprivileged youth and adults, concretely boosting their chances of finding better jobs. Its program enhances the national and international efforts against human trafficking by empowering victims and potential vulnerable groups of trafficking in youth in urban poor communities.
Mae Rivera Moreno, Community Affairs Manager of Microsoft Philippines, says this of human trafficking, “It is one of the worst forms of human rights violations. We hope that through step-Up we can help more survivors find better opportunities in life as well as lessen the number of potential victims."
Rose was one such survivor. Only a year ago, Rose could barely keep herself awake from the excessive long hours of work that kept her on her feet. Her former employer’s mental and verbal abuse also crippled her spirit and sent her rolling on waves of depression. These days, she gets to tinker with a laptop, courtesy of her new boss, and more important, has rediscovered her capacity to dream gain.
Rose was one of 49 girls who were guaranteed secure employment through a signed contract by a recruiter who transported them from their native Davao to Manila under a tarpaulin-covered vehicle under the cover of night. The contract stated that for her services as a domestic helper, she would be paid P2,500 a month and Philhealth and SSS benefits.
As soon as she and her friends were distributed to different employers who lived in different houses in Manila, the story took an unexpectedly horrific direction altogether.
Rose narrates her own experience in Tagalog, “I was 18 years old then and was assigned to an employer in Kalookan. The employer immediately locked me up along with the others who were assigned with me. The way they treated us was so bad that the only thing we could think of was escaping. There were even times that the employer left nothing for us to eat except spoiled food."
Ten months into this hell, salvation came in the form of a disgruntled laundrywoman who said she was determined to leave, come what may. Rose, hearing of her plans to escape, immediately volunteered to come. One night, the laundryman, Rose, and a few more brave souls cut the laundry wires (“sampayan"), strung them into a line, and used them like a rope to climb down from the eighth floor where they were confined to the fifth floor from where they could easily take the stairs and run.
Neighbors from the nearby houses heard of their plight and took them in, until it was safe for them to leave. Rose tagged along with a friend who found sanctuary in an aunt’s house. The aunt also knew of the Visayan Forum and, after some time, brought her niece and Rose to its nearest office where they could report their experience and file a complaint.
The Visayan Forum also opened a door by which Rose and her friend could enter into a new life through the Step-UP program.
Rose continues her story, “I spent two weeks in the Visayan Forum’s Community Technology Learning Center learning computer work. Now, I know how to type. Now I’m also using a laptop. It started when my new employer lent me the laptop where I could play a disc of children’s nursery music to lull their baby to sleep."
Rose says she has also started to dream again. She wants to finish her studies and probably continue studying IT-related courses.
Rose is one of the victims who had been liberated from human trafficking slavery. Microsoft step-UP projects to set free and educate approximately 10,000 more in the next couple of years. It is facilitated in three of Visayan Forum’s centers, namely Manila, Batangas City and Davao City, which are some of the trafficking hot spots in the country. The training will also be coursed through the Community Technology Learning Centers (CTLCs) that Visayan Forum’s 10 local NGO partners are operating since last year. Two more NGO implementers will be added this year.
For more information about step-UP, contact Mae Rivera-Moreno at [email protected]
Source: GMANews.TV
top
