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| VIDEOS Trafficking at the Manila
Port Shot July 2001:
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| Video script/narration: It's night in the Manila Port area. Never a good time for women and children to be on the streets alone. Yet day and night thousands of women and young people arrive here in search of work to support their families back home in the provinces. According to Visayan Forum, an NGO which works to protect new arrivals, Manila Port is the last place where vulnerable women and children are visible and can be helped. Once they leave this area, they simply vanish into the city offering a myriad of low-paid and often illegal opportunities to earn money -- from factory jobs and domestic service to bar work and prostitution. Tonight, Visayan Forum's Founder and President Cecilia Oebanda is talking to some of the organization's many partners in the battle to protect women and children from the pimps and recruiters who operate in the port area. Manila Port's Security Guards can play a vital role in identifying and protecting vulnerable young people. Addressing their pre-shift roll call, Cecilia Oebanda explains that Visayan Forum operates a Halfway House, and they can bring in any young people or women they think are in need of a safe haven. Cecilia Oebanda: Nineteen-year-old Beth Gonzales knows what it is like to be exploited. She was left without a home after she fell out with the people who employed her as a domestic servant. She fell into conversation with a woman who offered her a place to stay. Before the end of the evening she had been drugged and the woman had sold her virginity to a merchant seaman on a visiting ship. She was only seventeen years old then and it took her a whole year to get out of sex work. Beth Gonzales:
Another key partner in the battle to protect the young from being trafficked to Manila for illegal work, is the Philippine Coast Guard Commander Jose Cabildo and his crew are on their way to intercept a Manila-bound ferry. They believe a young girl reported missing by her parents might be on board. Once the ferry has docked and the passengers disembark, she will be hard to spot. The chances of finding her before the vessel docks are better. After patrolling the passenger decks, Commander Cabildo questions a young girl who seems to be alone but turns out to be accompanied by an aunt. She is not the girl he is looking for. There are some 7,000 islands in the Philippine archipelago and every year around five million people, as many as half of them young girls and women, arrive at Manila Port by ferry. Alfonso Cusi is General Manager of the Philippine Ports Authority, a crucial partner of Visayan Forum. Alfonso Cusi: For unguided children to be in Manila is a big problem. We in the Ports Authority are aware of that and considering they are passing through our ports we believe we have a social responsibility to prevent them from coming into Manila, especially if they are not properly guided. After a 24-hour trip from Cebu City in the Visayan region of the Philippines, the passengers are probably pleased to hit dry land. But Manila Port is a bustling, frightening place for new arrivals. As they exit the ferry terminal they are met by people offering transportation and jobs. Among their ranks are recruiters and pimps looking for young girls to place in sweatshops, domestic work or the capital's many bars and brothels. It is here at the port's arrival terminals that Visayan Forum workers like Jennifer Tangcay (in orange shirt) try to identify potentially vulnerable young people and offer them help. This may be general advice, temporary accommodation or just a telephone number to call if they need help during their first few days in Manila. Jennifer and her colleagues call these operations "roundings" and they often work together with the Ports Police to scan arriving children and see who might need their help. Today, Jennifer has spotted a group of young boys and girls who seem to be being trafficked. The young people all claim to be over 18 but Jennifer and Ports Police officer Antonieto Tarrayo think they are lying and ask them for proof which they don't have. Ports Police Officer, Antonieto
Tarrayo: If the police cannot verify their ages or believe they may be bound for illegal work then they are taken to Visayan Forum's Halfway House. There the workers can try and contact the children's parents and look after them until their promised jobs can be verified. Understandably, it is a harrowing time for the young people. It is hard work for Visayan Forum, too, and they can't manage it alone. They work closely with others, from different sectors of work, who all have a role to play in the fight against trafficking: the Ports Authority, ferry companies, the Coast Guard, Port Police and security guards. Visayan Forum is licensed by the Department of Social Welfare to provide secure temporary care for minors as well as counselling and other services, and is supported by the ILO and UNICEF. Cecilia Oebanda: Carmella Torres, National Programme Manager of ILO's International Programme for the Elimination of Child Labour: Children below 18 years of age are target groups and they are very vulnerable groups and once they are exposed to a place which is very new to them with no relatives or friends around, they can be placed in a situation of work where they can exploited, abused or even sexually exploited. Once the children have had a chance to rest in the Halfway House dormitories, Visayan Forum workers conduct a "getting to know you" session to help the young people relax and to gain their confidence. Later, many of these young people admitted they were younger than 18 and Visayan Forum was able to find them places in a three-month training programme run by Educational and Research Development Assistance. This will help them to gain skills that will better equip them to find a job at the end of the course. Shot Sequence
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