Various organizations from different sectors launched on Tuesday a campaign that declared war against human trafficking.

Led by the Visayan Forum Foundation Inc (VFFI), the latest campaign seeks to put an end to trafficking of Filipino women and children.

These victims often land as sex slaves, bonded laborers whose freedom and dignity are stripped “under the guise of safe migration.”

“This gathering is a manifestation of all able bodies ready to free women and children sold within the country and in other parts of the world,” Cecil Flores-Oebanda, president and executive director of VFFI.

The launch of the War Against Human Trafficking was marked by a symbolic covenant signing that “will put into action the pledges of organizations to join this war.”

As a leading sending country of migrant workers worldwide, the Philippines has its fair share of positive and negative stories on migration.

The VFFI said that while the export of people abroad greatly contributes to the economy, thousands of Filipinos are still victimized by human traffickers who have mastered the art of deception, coercion, fraud to exploit people’s vulnerabilities.

Domestic trafficking

Trafficking not only happens to people who try to find a better life abroad to escape poverty in the Philippines.  Since 2001 to June 2008, VFFI said it assisted 32,000 potentially trafficked and women and children within the country.

A poster disseminated during the launch of the campaign described in brief the ordeal of a 15-year-old girl who was promised a job in Manila but ended up as a prostitute.

“Maria” has had 427 sexual partners. Her handler sold her virginity to a foreigner for P10,000. From then on, Maria was ordered to fake virginity while she serviced other men. She had to undergo several abortions before the VFFI rescued her

Sadly, Maria is not the only one to suffer the same fate. She is among the 800,000 women and children trafficked across borders yearly.

“We cannot allow our women and children to be snatched from under our noses. We need to wage a full scale war in order to fight human trafficking in all fronts—from source communities to transit areas like ports and airports, even in the points of destination. We need to attack the business of traffickers who have mastered the art of deception, coercion, fraud and exploitation of the victims’ vulnerabilities,” said Flores-Oebanda.

Springboard for intn'l trafficking

According to the VFFI, internal trafficking served as the springboard for international trafficking “as worldwide recruitment relies on intricate processes that start in far-flung communities.”

Traffickers use different ports and land routes around the country to transport their victims. These criminals who operate underground have strong ties to corrupt officials and transport operators.

Despite efforts of the government and other stakeholders to stop human trafficking operations, the VFFI said that the fight against human traffickers must be fought in various fronts.

The campaign aims to achieve the following:

• Create massive social awareness to prevent trafficking, both at the supply and demand side;
• Sustain ownership and accountability of major stakeholders especially in government to address the root causes and symptoms of trafficking;
• Mobilize public-private collaboration by enlisting the ownership of private companies, especially ship, airlines and bus companies;
• Government must also strictly monitor the conduct of formal recruitment and placement agencies;
• Sustain public sector support to participate, initiate and monitor activities to combat trafficking.

US vows more aid

US Ambassador to the Philippines Kristie Kenney said human trafficking is a real problem throughout the world.

“Activities like this today are really important because it brings this issue to regular people's living room everyday.  And there maybe people who know of someone trafficked, or have a cousin, a sister or brother and can spread that message. Activities like this are terrific,” said Kenney.

Kenney added that the US and the Philippines continue to work together against human trafficking.

“We’ve contributed about $2M here in the last few years working mostly with the Visayan Forum to build halfway houses to help in prevention, to help train people in prosecution. We do all that of course in conjunction with Philippine government partners and we will keep on doing that this is incredibly an important issue,” she said.

“This is a war we should all be proud of to take part in. This is a war that saves innocent lives. This is a crime that robs children, women and some men of their dignity of their dreams and of their future and we won’t let it happen,” said Kenney.