NORTHERN SAMAR: Looking for ways to survive, 14-year-old Elsa (not her real name) was enticed to work in Manila when a recruiter promised her a job.

“There was no job here . . . so when a recruiter told me that I could land as a household help in Manila, I immediately agreed,” Elsa said in Filipino.

Despite being a minor, the assurance of employment convinced Elsa that working in the capital will give her a better life.

Elsa narrated that her recruiter brought her to Quezon City, Manila to take care of a three-year-old child. Her dreamed-of ticket to a better life became a nightmare.

“I was overworked and had only four hours of sleep each day. My employers sometimes don’t give me food to eat. If they do, it was only a piece of bread or spoiled soup,” Elsa narrated bitterly.

“They didn’t allow me to use cellphone and most of the time I was slapped on my head if I commit a simple mistake,” Elsa teary-eyed related.

The unbearable condition prompted Elsa to just run away from her employer. She was able to call her mother in the province and told her everything that has happened.

“I sent her money that I borrowed from a friend so she could go back in Samar [province]. I’m just so happy she’s back here,” Elsa’s mother related.

Elsa is now happily married with one child in her hometown and vowed to never return in Manila.

Elsa is just one of the numerous victims of human trafficking. Despite having no exact figures on victims in the Philippines, it was estimated by the Plan International, a non-governmental organization that promote child rights, that there are about 300,000 to 400,000 Filipino women and 60,000 to 100,000 children, trafficked annually.

“Massive recruitment still occurs in poor provinces. Abject poverty serves as catalyst for traffickers to exploit people in rural communities. This is manifested by seeing daily scores of victims or potential victims of trafficking in key transit and destination areas such as seaports, airports and bus terminals,” Carin van der Hor, country director of Plan in the Philippines explained.

Exploiting vulnerability of the poor
The recruiters usually guarantee an all-expenses paid trip to the area of destination, often in Metro Manila. Recruiters capitalize on the vulnerability of the child and her family by offering an enticing amount of salary and gives cash advance to the family.

The profiles of the children-victims are usually females between the ages of 12 to 17. They were offered jobs to work in restaurants, promotion agencies and factories or as household help. But most of the time they ended up being exploited into prostitution, forced labor and services, slavery and to some extent, removal and sale of organs. The victims experience abuse such as physical injuries, sexual violence and sometimes, even death.

In observance of the international day against human trafficking today, Plan strengthened their campaign touted as Community Empowerment Towards Prevention and Reintegration of Trafficked Persons. This project institutes community-based mechanisms to prevent children and women from being trafficked.

The project operates in provinces including Northern, Eastern and Western Samar, Southern Leyte, Occidental Mindoro, Masbate and in Camotes Island of Cebu City.

Plan, in partnership with the local government units, were able to build crisis centers to serve as residential facilities of rescued trafficked victims and survivors in Masbate, North Samar and West Samar.

“This project institutes community-based mechanisms to prevent children and women from being trafficked and to work for the recovery and reintegration of trafficked children survivors to their families and communities. It hopes to contribute to the ultimate goal of stopping trafficking in persons especially among children,” van der Hor said.

Meanwhile, to combat trafficking, the provincial government of Northern Samar has decided to require all recruiters to register at barangays, where they are looking to conduct recruitment activities.

Based on Ordinance 09, Series of 2011, the provincial government of northern Samar said that it is now requiring all recruiters to be registered with the barangays or else, face sanctions.

“It is imperative to have a serious examination on the recruitment and placement activities conveniently done at the barangay level and provide stringent requirement in the conduct thereof in order to curtail this social epidemic, being an insult to the rule of law and a violation of the fundamental rights of an individual,” said the six-page decree.

“All persons intending to conduct recruitment and placement activities in a barangay, within the jurisdiction of the province of Northern Samar, much register such intent with the office of the Punong Barangay of the barangay concerned,” noted Section 3 of the ordinance.

It added that the registration is free of charge and shall also serve as application for a barangay permit to conduct recruitment and placement activities “within the barangay.”

In registering, the recruiter is required to submit a Certificate of Registration to the Securities and Exchange Commission, if it is a corporation or partnership; business permit from the local government units, where it’s principal office is located; Certificate of Re-gistration issued by the Bureau of Internal Revenue; Certificate of Registration issued by the Department of Labor and Employment for domestic jobs and by the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration, for overseas job placement; and Job Order(s) from the recruiter’s client or prospective employer(s) indicating the complete address and contact numbers of the employers, the actual place of work, number of persons needed for the job, job description, the required skills, talent and educational attainment of the recruit.

Throughout the recruitment period, the provincial government said that barangay chairman is mandated to continue monitoring recruitment activities.

After the recruitment, the recruiter is also required to submit a list of recruited individuals, names, ages and complete addresses “for reference and tracking purposes.”