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Human trafficking situation in the Philippines fell a notch after
the US State Department kept the country on the Tier 2 Watch List on
Wednesday.
Tier 2 means that number of victims of severe
forms of trafficking was increasing significantly.
According to the 2009 US Department of State
Trafficking in Persons Report for the Philippines, the country was
put on Tier 2 Watch List because the government failed to show
evidence of progress in convicting human traffickers, particularly
those in labor trafficking. The report added the situation here
worsened, despite the significant government efforts.
The report described the country as a source,
transit and destination country for men, women and children
trafficked for commercial sexual exploitation and forced labor. A
significant number of Filipino men and women who migrate abroad for
work were also subjected to involuntary servitude in Bahrain,
Brunei, Canada, Cote d’Ivoire, Cyprus, Hong Kong, Japan, Kuwait,
Lebanon, Malaysia, Palau, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South
Africa, Taiwan, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, the report
added.
Even Muslim girls from Mindanao were being
trafficked to the Middle East by other Muslims, according to the
report.
Filipino women were also trafficked abroad for
commercial sexual exploitation, primarily to Hong Kong Japan,
Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea and countries in Africa, the Middle
East and Western Europe.
“Internally, women and children are trafficked
from poor farming communities in the Visayas and Mindanao to urban
areas, such as Manila and Cebu City, but also increasingly to cities
in Mindanao, for commercial sexual exploitation or for forced labor
as domestic servants or factory workers,” the report also said.
“An increasing number of women and children from Mindanao were
trafficked internally and transnationally for domestic work.”
As a result, the Philippines ranked one notch
lower in the Tier 2. The country has been in that status for three
years.
Countries with Tier 1 status are seen as doing a
good job against human trafficking.
Worse situation
In the same US report, the Philippines inched
closer to Tier 3, which groups countries that did not implement
considerable measures to breach the minimum target.
Thirty-nine other countries are on the Tier 2
list, which is a notch higher than the lowest ranking of Tier 3.
Countries in this category could face sanctions from Washington,
such as the withholding of non-humanitarian or non-trade related US
aid.
Human traffickers, according to the report, use
land and sea transportations to transfer victims from island
provinces to major cities. The criminals also use budget airline
carriers to transport victims out of the country, a growing trend.
“Traffickers used fake travel documents,
falsified permits and altered birth certificates,” it said.
The migrant workers were cited as the most
vulnerable of the victims, since they were often subjected to
violence, threats, inhumane living conditions, non-payment of
salaries, and withholding of travel and identity documents.
A small number of women were also occasionally
trafficked from the People’s Republic of China, Russia, South
Korea and Eastern Europe to the Philippines for commercial sexual
exploitation.
The report, citing information from
non-government organizations, also disclosed that organized crime
syndicates, including syndicates from Japan, were heavily involved
in Manila’s commercial sex industry. International organized crime
syndicates also transported people from mainland China through the
Philippines to third-country destinations.
“Child sex tourism continues to be a serious
problem for the Philippines, with sex tourists coming from Northeast
Asia, Australia, Europe, and North America to engage in sexual
activity with minors,” it said.
The report said that only four trafficking
convictions were obtained in the Philippines under the 2003
anti-trafficking law during the reporting period. Plus, there were
no reported labor trafficking convictions, despite widespread
reports of Filipinos trafficked for forced labor within the country
and abroad.
Palace vows action
The government vowed to intensify its campaign
against human trafficking in light of the US report.
“We have to advise authorities, like the
Bureau of Immigration, to be on look out for such activity [human
trafficking],” Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said. “We
won’t tolerate human trafficking and BI should be alerted to be
more focused in monitoring not just in the port of Manila but also
in Davao, Cebu and Zamboanga.”
He added that he does not believe that the US
government would sanction the Philippines for failing to effectively
address human- trafficking issues in the country.
“We’re a sovereign state, and we have own
laws and legal system,” Ermita said. “I don’t suppose we can
be sanctioned if we feel under sovereign state to undertake
violations of law like trafficking we can’t be dictated upon. They
should respect our sovereignty.”
-- Llanesca T. Panti And Angelo S. Samonte
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