Let’s Move is a grassroots movement of church workers and stakeholders to fight the exploitation of Filipinos trapped in human trafficking and modern-day slavery. Its mission is to collectively respond to the call of Pope Francis to condemn human trafficking as a social sin and a crime against humanity.
It is a continuing engagement of leaders to sustain concrete actions to end human trafficking and modern-day slavery, initiated by the participants of the first CBCP seminar-workshop on human trafficking held last February 27 to 28, 2014 attended by more than 400 bishops, clergy, religious, and the laity from the parishes, schools and other social institutions.
Supported by different CBCP commissions, Let’s Move is spearheaded by the CBCP Office on Women in collaboration with its initial secretariat, the Visayan Forum (VF).
With its strong grassroots presence, Let’s Move as a movement, plays an important role in prevention by challenging existing mindsets, beliefs and behaviors that perpetuate trafficking. Each one can help prevent trafficking by taking part in the following concrete plans of action:
Towards increased awareness of human trafficking among local government officials, students, teachers, and Church workers, we can:
- Regularly discuss human trafficking in pastoral letters and homilies
- Provide local orientations to youth leaders, parish priests, barangay officials, and leaders of parishes and dioceses
- Develop and strengthen community watch mechanisms by enhancing existing modules of the Basic Ecclesiastical Communities and Family Life Ministry
- Maximize technology in leveraging advocacy through the use of social media such as Facebook and Twitter, digital bulletins in school and local government mailing list
Towards integrating anti-trafficking modules in school curriculums, we can:
- Conduct trainings and planning sessions with school officials and guidance counselors from the Catholic Educational Association of the Philippines (CEAP)
- Explore creative ways to integrate anti-trafficking messages into the National Service Training Program (NSTP) curriculum, regular classroom subjects and youth leadership formation workshops
- Highlight vulnerability of young people to cybersex and other online criminal activities
- Invest in values formation on the role of the Filipino family as frontline defense against human trafficking through the Parish Renewal Experience
- Link to prevention efforts by providing technical and vocational skills and job placement for young people
Towards the creation of Women’s and Children’s office in every diocese to oversee anti-human trafficking measures, we can:
- Enhance and disseminate a CBCP Basic Orientation Manual on Human Trafficking with a trainors’ training guide for RA 9208 as amended
- Identify volunteers and legal officers who can run the desks
- Develop strong referral links with local service providers such as NGOs, MSWD and DOLE officials
- Mobilize and build the capacity of the members of the Catholic Lawyers Guild and Social Action Centers paralegal counselors in coordination with local members of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP)
Towards building the capacity of trainers, especially pastoral workers and priests, to serve as a core group of resource speakers in advocacy, we can:
- Conduct in-depth legal orientations with community extension workers, women religious, barangay officials in hotspot areas, radio and socio-civic groups
- Develop key messages that are clear, informative, and short which are relevant to local realities
- Develop an advocacy training for members of the Radio Veritas and other Catholic stations which are starting to expand into online platforms such as e-newsletters, email blasts, Youtube channels, video clips on diocesan websites, and integrated SMS hotlines
Towards crafting and implementing a strategic action plan against trafficking, each diocese can:
- Regularly report to and update their respective Bishops about Let’s Move activities to sustain their support and interest on the issue
- Regularly conduct a thorough analysis of local stakeholders support and interest within the Social Action Centers (SAC)
- Gather existing best practices from anti-poverty programs which can be linked to trafficking prevention such as micro-entrepreneurship, livelihood trainings, disaster risk reduction and gender-mainstreaming
- Link with global efforts to protect, rescue and reintegrate survivors of human trafficking
If you wish to update everyone about your actions, you can send your e-mails to [email protected]. To report about suspected trafficking operations, please contact us [email protected].