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 PHILIPPINES
Women Battle Sex Trafficking
The Philippines is ranked fourth on a list of nine nations with large numbers of children involved in prostitution and is a major source of trafficked persons. Church-based NGOs have joined efforts to empower women, who are also victims of the "trade", to identify and avoid human traffickers.
The Philippines, with an estimated 60,000-100,000 children caught up in the sex trade, is ranked fourth on a list of nine nations with large numbers of children involved in prostitution. The list was compiled by the Consortium Against Trafficking of Children and Women in Sexual Exploitation (CATCH-WISE) for its 2005 report.
The report states that Philippine women are trafficked from rural to metropolitan areas within the Philippines, as well as to other destinations in Asia and in Europe, the Middle East and North America. It cites the central Philippine province of Cebu as one of the five top destinations for sex tourism in Asia. Cebu also was identified as the major collection point for trafficking of children aged 11-17 from the Visayas and Mindanao, the central and southern regions of the Philippines, respectively.
The trend is deeply rooted in Philippine society. The U.S. State Department's 2004 Trafficking in Persons Report already cited the country as a major source of trafficked persons. It attributed trafficking to persistent poverty, high unemployment, a cultural tendency to migrate, a weak legal system and sex tourism.
Training the mothers
CATCH-WISE leads a two-year-old coalition of Church-based NGOs in battling sex trafficking in these regions. One coalition partner is the grassroots organization, Belen sa Cebu (crib in Cebu). In partnership with Catholic dioceses, Belen implements community-based training programs for mothers and local women officials on preventing human trafficking in the central Philippine islands of Bohol, Cebu and Leyte and in the southern cities of Butuan, Cagayan de Oro and Davao.
The NGO's program director, Good Shepherd Sister Henedina Mananzan, said recently that the fight against human trafficking is the work of the whole Church, involving the laity as well as the religious. The Good Shepherd Congregation now runs at least seven Belen drop-in centers nationwide. According to Sister Mananzan, Belen's long-term strategy focuses on building local governments' capacity to facilitate community-based interventions against trafficking.
The nun participated in a series of three training courses that CATCH-WISE initiated in 2004 and 2005, the most recent one in September. They covered a range of subjects from the history of trafficking to facilitating skills for trafficked people to analysis of Republic Act 9208, the country's Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act. The nun hopes the advocates trained in the courses will spread awareness down to the smallest community units.
Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation-Integrated Development, another CATCH-WISE partner, is based at the Catholic University of San Carlos in Cebu City and conducts activities similar to Belen's. For young women and mothers, it also sponsors education, housing construction, sustainable agriculture training, and lectures on political maturity and governance. Two Divine Word priests spearhead this NGO.
Another coalition partner, WINGS (Women Interacting for New Growth and Services), has a center based at Holy Spirit School in Tagbilaran City, Bohol. This center, whose volunteers help facilitate CATCH-WISE training sessions, offers education and training for gender responsiveness and feminist advocacy.
Empowering women
CATCH-WISE coordinator Julie Itaas said the training sessions aim to empower grassroots women to stop human trafficking in their areas. The women learn to identify traffickers who use false recruitment documents or resort to threats. They hear real-life stories of women who were abducted for trafficking.
Sister Mananzan said that in Mindanao, CATCH-WISE invites to its training sessions women who already are active in women's organizations or who are elected village officials. Their existing authority makes it easier to persuade village leaders to grant the advocates power to pursue recruiters and come up with a local ordinance against trafficking, the nun pointed out.
She said city officials are supportive, with the Davao City mayor's office having given her group "possible contacts" for traffickers. While sex trafficking in the Philippines has been a problem for a long time, the country lacks a database on trafficking to identify the number and nature of cases, including the preferred ages for targets of traffickers and their ultimate geographic destinations.
Drugged with "shabu"
Rosalina Luayon, a city health worker and wife of the chairman of San Antonio Village in Agdao, the largest slum area in Davao City, reported to CATCH-WISE organizers that village officials had successfully "rescued" nine Davao-based girls from a prostitution den in Manila. This occurred prior to their September training. The girls had been held captive for more than a month.
"The girls were mostly 13- and 14-year-olds who had been promised they would be sent to Japan as entertainers," she recounted. Once in Manila, the minors were placed in a house for "training," which included barhopping and drinking with male customers. The girls were forced to use "shabu," the street term for methamphetamine hydrochloride, to reduce their inhibitions.
By the time one girl's escape led to the rescue, several of the girls were pregnant. At the request of Luayon's husband, the rescue was not publicized in local media "so that the girls would not be ashamed" to go home. All nine girls came from Davao's rural areas.
In Cebu, Children's Legal Bureau, another CATCH-WISE affiliate, last year rescued 63 women and children from sex trafficking. Sister Mananzan said that her group is optimistic because of the support from local government leaders. Nonetheless, it remains cautious since some local officials might be involved in trafficking.
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