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While a young girl was recovering from a horrific life of sexual
abuse and trafficking, President Gloria Arroyo gave the state of the
Nation address to the Philippine Congress last week and list the
many achievements of her government for the past year curtailing the
trafficking of women and children is not among them. She is the most
politically powerful women in the country and could deal a deadly
blow to the pimps and pedophiles, the sex traffickers and foreign
mafia that enslave the children in their sex bars and clubs. However
the politicians behind the sex industry are powerful allies. The
rich property owners that rent the buildings housing the sex dens,
bars and clubs are influential. The hotel owners fill their double
beds with sex tourists and the emaciated bodies of impoverished
children and women have influence and the department of tourism goes
along with them. Sex, even sex with children is big business and the
laws are ignored and not enforced. Even police own clubs and bars.
The latest arrival in our home for trafficked
children is Jennifer. When she was 13, she was recruited from Bohol
with seven other girls by a pimp who offered them jobs as domestic
helpers in Metro Manila. She paid their families and instead of jobs
as servants they were brought to Angeles City, in the home province
of the president, like thousands of young girls are trafficked every
year.
Jennifer and the other children were locked up
in a private house and foreign sex tourists were brought there and
sexually abused them. After about six months of this of this
continual abuse, she and the other girls escaped and then ran away.
Jennifer was picked up by a man as she wandered the streets begging
for food at traffic lights and offered a meal and money. Desperate
she trusted him and was brought to Metro Manila. She struggled and
escaped again from the van when he tried to rape her.
Then Jennifer found a job as a domestic helper
in a posh housing estate but was treated as property made work
without pay and not allowed to leave the high walled compound. Again
after many months, she escaped and was finally referred to the Preda
children’s home and given protection, therapy. She is still
recovering. Soon she will start back in school and social workers
are now looking for her parents in Bohol province. Her life of pain
and exploitation is all too familiar.
This evil is the most serious challenge of the
presidency of President Arroyo who can end it with one stroke of the
pen and her signature on an executive order. Protecting the most
vulnerable is the duty and purpose of government. The challenge
facing this powerful woman president and her government is to do
battle with the crime syndicates and the sex mafia and crush them.
Not to comfort and coddle them.
Charities like Preda are ready to help, protect
and empower the rescued teenage victims so they can testify against
their traffickers and abusers. But few are rescued and without
witnesses there are no convictions. Immigration Commissioner
Marcelino Libanan has shown determination and commitment to
investigate the suspected foreign abusers and traffickers. The local
and foreign suspects must be investigated and not allowed to get
away with insulting Filipinos through their obnoxious websites
that degrade the Philippines and advertise it as a sex tourist
destination—a Disneyland of child sex for a small fee. When will
Filipino pride awake and see how degrading this business for the
image of a proud nation and president striving to be respected
worldwide as a developed nation.
According to the Trafficking of Persons report
of the US State Department there is rampant trafficking of persons
from the Philippines to other countries for sexual enslavement but
also in the Philippines itself and much too few convictions. It
says: “However, the [Philippine] government demonstrated weak
efforts to prosecute trafficking cases and convict trafficking
offenders.” The President has much to do and we are ready and
waiting to help.
preda@info.com.ph
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