Human trafficking in the Philippines

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Human Trafficking and the prostitution of children is a significant issue in the Philippines, often controlled by organized crime syndicates.

In an effort to deal with the problem, in 2003, Philippines passed a tough law against human trafficking, sex tourism, sex slavery and child prostitution. Enforcement of the law however is reported to be inconsistent.

Statistics

A 1997 report put the number of child victims of prostitution at 75,000 in the Philippines., with other estimates saying as many as 100,000.

According to the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef), prostitution was present in 37 provinces then. The major child prostitution dens were found in Manila, Angeles City, Puerto Galera, Davao City and Cebu City. The Philippines has reportedly become a favorite destination of pedophiles from the US, Australia and Europe. The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) has documented 8,335 cases of child abuse from 1991 to 1996.

The Philippines is the fourth country with the most number of prostituted children, and authorities have identified an increase in paedophiles travelling to the Philippines.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societys state that there are more than 1.5 million street children many of them living on the streets of major cities like Manila, Angeles City, Olongapo, Iloilo and Baguio. The children’s most common occupations are vending, cleaning, guarding automobiles, domestic work and, to a lesser extent, prostitution and drug trafficking.

Trafficking in different areas

A special report from the Vatican states: The Philippines has a serious trafficking problem of women and children illegally recruited into the tourist industry for sexual exploitation. Destinations within the country are Metro Manila, Angels City,Olongapo City, towns in Bulacan, Batangas, Cebu City, Davao and Cagayan de Oro City and other sex tourist resorts such as Puerto Galero, which is notorious, Pagsanjan, Laguna, San Fernando Pampanga, and many beach resorts throughout the country. The promise of recruiters offers women and children attractive jobs in the country or abroad, and instead they are coerced and forced and controlled into the sex industry for tourists.

Puerto Galera

There are numerous cases of pedophilia that have been reported in Puerto Galera, a beach resort on Mindoro Island three hours south of Manila. The area is a favorite for foreign pedophilles seeking children. Puerto Galera has been described as one of the Philippines top five spots for child prostitution

Subic Bay

In 1988 a Naval Investigative undercover operation based in Subic Bay were offered children for sex as young as 4, 6, 12 and 13 years of age by Filipinos. Many of those involved in the prostitution of children have been brought to justice in the courts. Most of the 16,000 women estimated to have worked the bars around the largest overseas naval base were forced into the sex industry. One 16 year old child tells of her experience in Subic Bay: She was locked in a room for a month, starved and force-fed drugs and alcohol to ensure she was addicted and could be more easily controlled. She was often beaten unconscious for refusing to have sex with customers. Pregnancy, abortion, the spread of disease and drug abuse were just some of the indignities imposed on Filipinas. Despite the US pull-out from Subic Bay in 1992, continues to fester, catering to a new generation of civilian sex tourists.The former navel base, and current visits by American Military have been the subject of protests by welfare groups and activists in Subic. Brandishing placards and chanting slogans, members of WAIL and Gabriela called for justice for all victims of human rights abuses.

Angeles

Main article: Human trafficking in Angeles City

Pagsanjan

CNN states that "A decade ago, Pagsanjan, located about 60 miles south of Manila, became known as a popular location for men seeking homosexual prostitutes." Pagsanjan began to attract an increasing number of pedophiles. "In the '80s, Pagsanjan was declared by international gay publications as a paradise for them, a gay paradise, a haven for homosexuals," said Dr. Sonia Zaide, an activist who is particularly concerned by the expansion of the town's sex trade to include minors, mostly young boys. Time Magazine reported in 1993 that pagsanjan was a favorite destination for sex tourists seeking children. The Filipino government began a crackdown on the child sex industry in Pagsanjan and 23 people of varying nationalities were arrested. Foreign pedophiles take advantage of the poverty, with children often being used as sexual currency by their own parents. Since then the town of Pagsanjan through civic action has dramatically reduced child prostitution.

Pasay

In 1994, the Community Mobilization against Child Prostitution was founded to initiated to reduce the incidence of child prostitution in Pasay.Children as young as 14 and 15 year olds are child prostitutes in Pasay clubs.

Makati

In 2003, Makati Mayor Jejomar C. Binay ordered a crackdown against prostitution following reports that some prostitutes are linked to criminal syndicates.33 women were rescued from a sex trafficking operation in Makati City by a team of National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) agents.

Efforts to Control

Despite government warnings, more and more Asians go to other countries for economic reasons. The number of entertainers who go abroad has increased tremendously.

NGOs have complained that the local political and legal establishments protect pedophiles, sometimes even including law enforcement. The United States Embassy in the Philippines states that some officials condone a climate of impunity for those that exploited trafficked women and children

Department of Justice records show that from June 2003 until January 2005 there were 65 complaints received for alleged trafficking in persons violations in the entire nation.

Microsoft has awarded over US$1 million through its Unlimited Potential grants to non-governmental organisations (NGOs) across six Asian countries, including the Philippines. The latest round of grants will deliver IT training courses specifically for people in human-trafficking hot spots across the region.

Unicef executive director Carol Bellamy stated, The Philippines is among the few countries that are making a dent in the fight against the trafficking of women and children. She also stated, "This is not going to be easy, Bellamy said. "We are dealing with criminals and they are not stupid. There are lots of money to be made and they will go to any length to continue harming and exploiting children in this awful way".

Action by Foreign Governments

Numerous overseas countries have introduced legislation which enables them to prosecute their nationals for crimes against children overseas, only a few pedophilles who have comitted offences in the Philippines are charged and convicted back in their own countries for the offences. The Australian Government set up the "Australian Federal Police's Transnational Sexual Exploitation Trafficking Team" which investigates pedophilles in places such as the Philippines. Some countries from which sex tourism originates, including Australia, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United States, have passed legislation which criminalizes sex tourism. In the United States, the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 makes travel with intent to engage in any sexual act with a juvenile punishable by up to ten years' imprisonment.

On September 15, 2003 , the US Department of Labor / Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB) / International Child Labor Program signed a collaborative agreement with the Philippines government, and contributed US$5 million, on a Timebound Program. The Timebound Program covers sexual exploitation and trafficking of children for commercial sexual exploitation. The program was geared towards working in various parts of the Philippines.

THE UNITED STATES government provided a grant of 179,000 dollars to help a Philippine non-governmental organization expand its halfway house operations to help victims of human trafficking, according to a statement by the US Embassy in Manila.

The British Embassy in Manila organised a two-week course led by Scotland Yard detectives into techniques to investigate cases of child abuse. Subsequently, the Philippine National Bureau of Investigation set up an anti-child abuse division - the first squad dedicated to fighting child abuse in the country.

The Victims

Those involved in the kidnapping of children occasionally make video tapes of children being sexually abused.

A 13 year old child Sharon tells how she was forced to service more than 1,500 clients before she escaped. My back ached and I bled, she said, I tried to run away but the guard at the door blocked my way and pushed me back into the room. I cried and cried all night.

The UN paper says there are also cases in which the children are "kidnapped, trafficked across borders or from rural to urban areas, and moved from place to place so that they effectively disappear".

Children are at risk of hiv/aids from pedophiles.

A 1999 survey in Angeles found 12% syphilis among female sex workers, 26% had gonorreha, and 38% had chlamydia It is illegal in the Philippines to force somebody to take an AIDS test, so there is no way of knowing how many children have been infected with hiv/aids.

Women and children involved in prostitution are vulnerable to rape, murder, AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. Some men said that it served them right to be infected by men.

Women and children who become pregnant after being raped are forced into backyard abortion clinics because abortion is illegal in the Philippines. Unsafe abortions render women vulnerable not only to infections and other health complications, but even to death. Because these abortions are carried out in backyard abortion clinics there is no record of how many women and children die each year as a result.

According to ECPAT chair Ron O'Grady, the chances of full rehabilitation are slim for children who have been sexually abused repeatedly.He adds: "We know that those children who are kept in brothels die quite young. (They) die in many cases before they have had a chance to live. We know they die from AIDS, from drugs and from committing suicide." What sex tourism really means to the "real girls" is reflected in Poppy's words, captured by Ron O'Grady in his book, The Child and the Tourist: I found myself dancing at a club at the age of 11... I have had different kinds of customers, foreigners and Filipinos. I tried suicide but it didn't work so I turned to drugs. I want to die before my next birthday.

In the exploitative system of prostitution, bar owners and pimps make the most profit while the women are exposed to abuse, physical, emotional and psychological trauma. The absence of punitive measures for the male customers enables them to abuse the women in prostitution. The problem is compounded by the fact that society, even the church, discriminates against women in prostitution.

CATW, the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women lists numerous issues and adversities faced by women and girls in prostitution:

Problems Related to Health include: lack of comprehensive health services, not just on sexual health; women’s lack of knowledge of health issues; fear of doctors or medical professionals; and or risky health practices; drug use and risk from drugged client expensive and compulsory check-ups for issuance of health certificates; compulsory HIV tests and the lack of pre-test and post-test counseling, as well as the violation of confidentiality (publicly announced results) or no results given; lack of funds for hospitalization and health emergencies; forced intake of contraceptive pills and unsafe abortions.

Problems Related to the Law or the Legal System · Abusive, discriminatory conduct of raids, including arrests, maltreatment during raids or while in custody, extortion for release.

· Women held in debt bondage.

· Restriction of movement.

· Anti-vagrancy laws are unconstitutional, i.e. they violate equal protection and are classist and sexist in their enforcement.

Problems Related to Services · Lack of education, especially in the areas of literacy, rights awareness, and peer education.

· Women have the status of criminals.

· Inadequate support systems in the areas of counseling and legal assistance, as well as child care.

· The need for skills development, such as organizational and management skills, leadership, negotiation and documentation.

Problems Related to Violence Against Women · Trafficking in women by syndicates that practice active, deceptive recruitment.

· Economic abuse, i.e. no work, no food and poverty.

· A high rate of rape.

· Domestic violence.

· Violence caused by barangay (village) officials (fees, competition, harassment).

· Harmful physical, emotional, and psychological effects on the women.

· The “salvaging” or summary execution, especially of sick women.

Organized Crime of Child Trafficking

A special BBC investigation exposes the organized crime syndicates that control the child sex slavery trafficking in the Philippines. The investigation shows there could be 100,000 Philippine children involved in the local sex slavery trade. This crime gang has a system similar to that of the Sicilian Mafia, Yakuza and Triads. They often start as a trainee field recruiter, to running individual brothels, and then to overseeing an entire network - an underworld association.Local NGO`S refer to the the organized crime syndicates as the sex mafia. From the Philippines, girls are delivered to prison-like brothels in the North America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East. The organizers of the trade are varied, as well: it's a strange alliance of the Japanese Yakuza, Chinese Triad, Russian and Italian Mafia, eastern European gangsters, Albanian kingpins, Latin American cartels, Nigerian warlords, Asian businessmen and American financiers and subcontractors.

Legality

Revised Penal Code Article 202

Vagrants and prostitutes; penalty. — The following are vagrants:

1. Any person having no apparent means of subsistence, who has the physical ability to work and who neglects to apply himself or herself to some lawful calling;

2. Any person found loitering about public or semi-public buildings or places or trampling or wandering about the country or the streets without visible means of support;

3. Any idle or dissolute person who ledges in houses of ill fame; ruffians or pimps and those who habitually associate with prostitutes;

4. Any person who, not being included in the provisions of other articles of this Code, shall be found loitering in any inhabited or uninhabited place belonging to another without any lawful or justifiable purpose;

5. Prostitutes.

For the purposes of this article, women who, for money or profit, habitually indulge in sexual intercourse or lascivious conduct, are deemed to be prostitutes.
Any person found guilty of any of the offenses covered by this articles shall be punished by arresto menor or a fine not exceeding 200 pesos, and in case of recidivism, by arresto mayor in its medium period to prison correccional in its minimum period or a fine ranging from 200 to 2,000 pesos, or both, in the discretion of the court.

Revised Penal Code Article 341

Penal Code article 341 imposes a penality to any person who “shall engage in the business or shall profit by prostitution or shall enlist the services of any other person for the purpose of prostitution."

Republic Act 9208

Section 4 of Republic Act 9208, otherwise known as the "Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2003," deems it unlawful for any person, natural or juridical, to commit any of the following acts:

(a) To recruit, transport, transfer, harbor, provide, or receive a person by any means, including those done under the pretext of domestic or overseas employment or training or apprenticeship, for the purpose of prostitution, pornography, sexual exploitation, forced labor, slavery, involuntary servitude or debt bondage;
(b) To introduce or match for money, profit, or material, economic or other consideration, any person or, as provided for under Republic Act No. 6955, any Filipino women to a foreign national, for marriage for the purpose of acquiring, buying, offering, selling or trading him/her to engage in prostitution, pornography, sexual exploitation, forced labor, slavery, involuntary servitude or debt bondage;
(c) To offer or contract marriage, real or simulated, for the purpose of acquiring, buying, offering, selling, or trading them to engage in prostitution, pornography, sexual exploitation, forced labor or slavery, involuntary servitude or debt bondage;
(d) To undertake or organize tours and travel plans consisting of tourism packages or activities for the purpose of utilizing and offering persons for prostitution, pornography or sexual exploitation;
(e) To maintain or hire a person to engage in prostitution or pornography;
(f) To adopt or facilitate the adoption of persons for the purpose of prostitution, pornography, sexual exploitation, forced labor, slavery, involuntary servitude or debt bondage;
(g) To recruit, hire, adopt, transport or abduct a person, by means of threat or use of force, fraud deceit, violence, coercion, or intimidation for the purpose of removal or sale of organs of said person; and
(h) To recruit, transport or adopt a child to engage in armed activities in the Philippines or abroad.

Republic Act 7610 - Special Protection of Children Against Child Abuse, Exploitation and Discrimination Act

Sec. 5. Child Prostitution and Other Sexual Abuse. - Children, whether male or female, who for money, profit, or any other consideration or due to the coercion or influence of any adult, syndicate or group, indulge in sexual intercourse or lascivious conduct, are deemed to be children exploited in prostitution and other sexual abuse.
The penalty of reclusion temporal in its medium period to reclusion perpetua shall be imposed upon the following:

(a) Those who engage in or promote, facilitate or induce child prostitution which include, but are not limited to, the following:
(1) Acting as a procurer of a child prostitute;

(2) Inducing a person to be a client of a child prostitute by means of written or oral advertisements or other similar means;

(3) Taking advantage of influence or relationship to procure a child as prostitute;

(4) Threatening or using violence towards a child to engage him as a prostitute; or

(5) Giving monetary consideration goods or other pecuniary benefit to a child with intent to engage such child in prostitution.

(b) Those who commit the act of sexual intercourse of lascivious conduct with a child exploited in prostitution or subject to other sexual abuse; Provided, That when the victims is under twelve (12) years of age, the perpetrators shall be prosecuted under Article 335, paragraph 3, for rape and Article 336 of Act No. 3815, as amended, the Revised Penal Code, for rape or lascivious conduct, as the case may be: Provided, That the penalty for lascivious conduct when the victim is under twelve (12) years of age shall be reclusion temporal in its medium period; and

(c) Those who derive profit or advantage therefrom, whether as manager or owner of the establishment where the prostitution takes place, or of the sauna, disco, bar, resort, place of entertainment or establishment serving as a cover or which engages in prostitution in addition to the activity for which the license has been issued to said establishment.

Sec. 6. Attempt To Commit Child Prostitution. - There is an attempt to commit child prostitution under Section 5, paragraph (a) hereof when any person who, not being a relative of a child, is found alone with the said child inside the room or cubicle of a house, an inn, hotel, motel, pension house, apartelle or other similar establishments, vessel, vehicle or any other hidden or secluded area under circumstances which would lead a reasonable person to believe that the child is about to be exploited in prostitution and other sexual abuse.
There is also an attempt to commit child prostitution, under paragraph (b) of Section 5 hereof when any person is receiving services from a child in a sauna parlor or bath, massage clinic, health club and other similar establishments. A penalty lower by two (2) degrees than that prescribed for the consummated felony under Section 5 hereof shall be imposed upon the principals of the attempt to commit the crime of child prostitution under this Act, or, in the proper case, under the Revised Penal Code.

Republic Act 6955 - Mail Order Brides

RA 6955 basically declares as unlawful "the practice of matching Filipino women for marriage to foreign nationals on a mail order basis."

Republic Act 8042 - Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos Act

This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (January 2007)

Senate Hearing

On September 15, 2004, the first hearing was held on escort services. followed by a second hearing on September 22, 2004, attended by well-known movie personalities and a third hearing, attended by representatives from KTVs.

References

External links

Category:

Philippine law