‘Hell on earth’ for human trafficking victims

ON DISTANT SHORE
By Val G. Abelgas

Human trafficking is another major problem that has plagued the country for decades. Despite increased resources given to the task force against human trafficking, the Philippines remains, according to the US State Department 2013 report, a major source country for sex-trafficking and forced labor, adding that “child sex tourism remained a serious problem” in the country.

Just last week, Taiwan police busted a human smuggling ring and rescued 35 Filipinas who were forced into the sex trade. The women were recruited under the pretext that they would be working as professional dancers. Instead, the recruiter took away their passports after they arrived in Taiwan and forced them to work as sex slaves.

Also last week, the Department of Justice recommended a preliminary investigation and the subsequent filing of charges of human trafficking and illegal recruitment against 12 people, including officials at the Philippine embassy in Kuwait.

Twenty-nine women had initially complained against the embassy officials and their recruiters but in the end only 15 decided to pursue action against them. Their complaints ranged from their agencies requiring them to work for long hours; maltreatment from their employers; while one complained that she was sexually abused by her employer and the employer’s son.

These are but a few of hundreds of cases, reported and unreported, of human trafficking that have victimized thousands of Filipinos desperately looking for job and hoping to lift their families from extreme poverty. Every so often, we hear of Filipinas recruited purportedly for a decent job only to land as sex slaves or domestic workers. Either way, they are often abused physically, sexually and emotionally, and grossly underpaid.

“Rampant corruption” in all government levels weakened efforts against human trafficking in the Philippines, which remains non-compliant to international anti-trafficking standards, the US report said.

In the Trafficking in Persons Report 2013 of the US Department of State, the Philippines retained its Tier 2 status, which is given to countries whose governments do not fully comply with the Trafficking Victims Protection Act’s minimum standards but are but are making significant efforts to do so.

And the Philippine government, unable to provide jobs and alleviate poverty, continues to lay out overseas jobs programs that are often used by heartless recruiters, in connivance with corrupt government officials and employees, to lure the hapless Filipinos into non-existent jobs and to a life of abuse and misery.

Because the Philippine economy is dependent on the huge remittances sent by Filipino workers abroad, the government basically turns a blind eye on the abuses suffered by these workers. Despite tens of thousands of Filipinos falling victim to human traffickers worldwide, the Department of Labor dispatches them in hordes every year, either unknowing or unwary of the sad fate that many of these workers will eventually face abroad.

Many of these Filipinos are warned time and again of illegal recruiters, but in the face of extreme poverty, they would just throw caution to the wind and pray that this would be the break they have longed for. And for many, the dream becomes a nightmare.

Recently, a US congressional delegation and a ranking official of US Agency for International Development, which is assisting the Philippines in the rehabilitation efforts in typhoon-ravaged Leyte and other provinces in the Visayas, expressed concern that thousands of women and children could fall prey to human traffickers because of their vulnerability resulting from the extreme deprivation that they suffered from the disaster.

“The most vulnerable—women, children, the elderly, and those with special needs—always fare worst during disasters,” Republican congressman Chris Smith, who led the three-member delegation to the disaster zone last week, told a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee. At particular risk of sex trafficking are vulnerable people “who over a longer period of time may have lost some hope,” said Smith.

It is this state of desperation that lures many Filipinos to promises of better jobs and better lives. And it is this state of desperation that human traffickers take advantage of to get them into their trap.

While the typhoon victims are the most vulnerable at this time, millions of Filipinos are actually close to that kind of desperation and are open targets for human traffickers. Consider these statistics gathered by CNN: 36.8% of Filipinos live below national poverty level; 47.5% subsist on less than $2 a day; 17.4% of Filipinos ages 15-24 are unemployed; 900,000 Filipinos lack birth records or identity documents, which makes them even more vulnerable to human traffickers; 10% of the whole population and 22% of working age population work abroad.

Among the country’s trafficking victims are 300,000 to 400,000 women, 60,000 to 100,000 children, while 80% of all human trafficking victims are people below 18 years old. These victims are sent abroad, mostly to East Asia and the Middle East, and locally to Manila, Cebu and other urban areas.

The rampant corruption in the Philippines has also made the country a major target for human traffickers because corruption enables trafficking at every point of the process, from recruitment to departure.

For decades, Filipino workers have been the foundation of the Philippine economy, with their remittances accounting for 10 to 14 percent of the annual Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for which they have been hailed as the “bagong bayani” or new heroes. It is incumbent upon the government to ensure that they are protected at all times, especially from predators like the human traffickers.

It is bad enough that they have to suffer emotionally from being far from their families. It is “hell on earth” as Smith described it, for these people to be victimized by human traffickers.

(valabelgas@aol.com)