Warm greetings to everyone!

It was six years ago, July 30 2010, when the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Global Plan of Action to Combat  Trafficking in Persons. This urged Governments worldwide to take coordinated and consistent measures against trafficking. The resolution was adopted as well by member states in 2013  and officially designated July 30 as the World Day Against Trafficking.

I am happy to be with you today to celebrate the World Day Against Trafficking with the theme, Ituloy Ang Laban Kontra Human Trafficking!

I would also like to congratulate Undersecretary Vilma Cabrera, the personel from the Protective Services Bureau Department, and the whole DSWD team for your strong commitment to serve the victims of trafficking and their families.

We are given the highest ranking of Tier 1 by the US State Department ‘s 16th Global Trafficking in Persons Report (GTIP) released June 30, 2016. This shows their recognition of our commitment to comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of severe forms of trafficking based on US TVIP of 2000.

Situation

Trafficking of people has been a concern for a long time now.

The International Labour Organization estimates 21 million people to be victims of forced labour globally. This includes victims of human trafficking for labour and sexual exploitation.

In the Philippines, around 140,000 to 160,000 people are victims of modern-day slavery according to Rapplers- a social news network. This figure includes human trafficking and situations of forced labor and servitude.

Human trafficking as defined under Republic Act 9208 or Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2003 is the recruitment,  transportation, transfer or harboring, or receipt of persons with or without the victim’s consent or knowledge, within or across national borders by means of threat or use of force, or other forms of coercion, abduction, fraud, deception, abuse of power or of position, taking advantage of the vulnerability of the person, or, the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person for the purpose of exploitation.

This includes at a minimum, the exploitation or the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor or services, slavery, servitude or the removal or sale of organs.

Trafficking is accomplished through bride trade, illegal recruitment and/or sex tourism. Oftentimes the activity is clandestine, making it difficult for the authorities to find out the perpetrators.

Women and children especially from indigenous families and from remote areas of the Philippines are  most vulnerable to varying forms of forced labor and sex trafficking.

Internally displaced persons from disaster-affected communities are subjected to sex trafficking, domestic servitude, forced begging, and forced labor in small factories not only in Metro Manila but also in Metro Cebu, Central and Northern Luzon, and urbanized areas in Mindanao.

Almost three years since the Typhoon Yolanda, many victims still waits for shelter and livelihood allocation, as stated by representative Emmi de Jesus of Gabriela Party List.

And I quote Rep. de Jesus on this, “Hindi nakapagtataka na sa patalim ng human trafficking kumakapit ang ating mga kababaihan at kabataan.” (“It is not surprising how some women and children are forced to situations of human trafficking.”)

According to the GTIP Report, with an estimated 10 million OFWs, a significant number of this workers are subject to forced labor and sex trafficking. This brings to mind Mary Jane Veloso, an OFW sentenced  to death in Indonesia but her execution was stayed by strong public outcry. She too is a victim of trafficking and she is still in death row in Indonesia.

There are also reports coming from people’s organization of OFWs of complicity of some government officials in trafficking allowing traffickers to act with impunity. Connie Bragas-Regalado, chairperson of Migrante Sectoral Partylist cited the case of Philippine Cultural Attache Bueneflor Cruz on human trafficking for purposes of labor exploitation, and Labor Attache Antonio Villafuerte who was allegedly involved in the sex-for- flight scandal.

And I quote Bragas-Regalado,“However, sadly, most of the time, despite numerous complaints , they are merely ‘reprimanded’ or allowed to get off the hook by the PH government.”

Also due to the location of Mindanao to nearby country like Malaysia, our country has been used as a transit point of victims brought across national borders.

Tourist destinations such as Boracay, Puerto Galera and Surigao, and some former US Military Bases such as Angeles City and Olongapo where there is a high demand for commercial sex acts is also a place where trafficking occurs.

Ituloy ang Laban Kontra Human Trafficking (DSWD Services)

The fight against human trafficking is not the sole responsibility of DSWD but we are the frontliners assisting our people victimized by human trafficking.

Based on the data gathered from our Field Offices, we have served a total of 2,096 cases of victims-survivors of trafficking for CY 2015. (see chart below of Disaggregated by Gender and Purpose)

Through our RRPTP program we were able to provide services to the victims such as rescue, counseling, financial assistance, skills training, temporary shelter and legal assistance.

Our program extends not just to the victims of trafficking but also to their families and relatives, and communities with incidence of trafficking.

Of the assistance we provided last year, the most availed services are temporary shelter(923), psychosocial counseling(881) and a limited financial assistance in the form of transportation expenses(648) for the trafficking victim. (see chart below of Services to Trafficked Persons)

The need to ensure the social protection of Filipinos abroad hence, we continuously deploy Social Welfare Attache to other countries. To date, we have nine attaches deployed in Riyadh, Jeddah, Kuwait, Qatar, Abu Dhabi, Hong Kong, Italy and Malaysia.

We have assisted numerous victims of trafficking, but as long as poverty is not fully addressed, the number of victims of trafficking will continue to grow.

Not only do we provide assistance to victims, we also ensure our capability to serve them well.

We have successfully launched 28 advocacy activity to R.A. 9208 as amended by R.A. 10364 and other related laws on Anti- Trafficking in Persons Act.

The department has also successfully held capacity building trainings such as the Training on Trauma Informed Care for RRPTP Focal Persons and Social Welfare Officers II (SWO-IIs) which was held last year.

Poverty, A Cause for Vulnerability from Trafficking

Many of you may already have heard that before I became the secretary of DSWD, I was a political detainee during Marcos time, and an activist/advocate of the people’s struggle for genuine land reform and national industrialization.

As we say in the movement and we know this for a fact, ‘mayaman ang Pilipinas pero mahirap ang sambayanan’ (the Philippines is rich but the people are poor). We have the advantage of wealth from our natural resources and wealth in our people’s skills and resilience but often times we are the ones taken advantage of.

For lack of land to till, and a job that will provide adequately for their families, mothers, daughters would often times seek job elsewhere, either locally or overseas.

They are also victims of discrimination and violence stemming from our feudal and patriarchal society and oftentimes commodified as sex objects.

The inability of poor families to provide children with shelter, enough food, and education makes our children vulnerable to abuse as well.

For this reason, we cannot look at the problem of trafficking alone. We need to link it with the basic issues of the people especially of the workers and peasants.

Ways Forward

In President Duterte’s State of the Nation Address or SONA, he emphasized the fight against human trafficking and illegal recruiters as one of the main thrust of this administration.

Poverty and the inadequate response to victims of disasters create a fertile ground for traffickers as well.

While we work on progressive change for the people, let us also reaffirm and strengthen our commitment against trafficking.

Based on our current thrust at DSWD and recommendations from concerned agencies (local and foreign), and the annual report of RRPTP we are faced with bigger challenges to fully serve the people, especially the victims of trafficking.

 Trafficking can happen everywhere and everyone is vulnerable. For this reason we need to further enhance our campaign to let the people know what we can do against trafficking and the assistance we can provide to the victims. These information drives must reach local communities and strived to be easily understood by them.

 We must address the challenge of having limited number of social workers at the local level to manage and handle TIP cases.

 Address the challenge of under reporting of trafficking and conviction of traffickers as most of the traffickers are known or a close kin to the victim.

 Provide timely assistance to/and provide comprehensive assistance to disaster-affected communities reducing their vulnerability to trafficking and to allow them to recover to be productive citizens again.

 Increase the availability of shelters and protection resources.

 Develop and implement programs aimed at significantly reducing the demands for commercial sex acts, including child sex tourism and online child sexual exploitation.

 Increase efforts to identify labor trafficking victims, especially children subjected to forced labor.

 Increase efforts to investigate and prosecute traffickers including government officials involved in trafficking and trafficking-related offenses, ensure victim-friendly criminal justice proceedings.

 Expand efforts to assist conflict-affected communities, especially the women and children.

 Work with different sectors, other government agencies, NGO’s, people’s organizations(i.e Gabriela, Migrante), and other entities and individuals working to fight trafficking.

These are some of the points we need to work on and this can still be improved based on further consultations with you and our field offices.

Suportahan natin ang panawagan sa DSWD para sa tunay na malasakit, maagap at mapagkalingang serbisyo sa ating mamamayan. (Let us support our call at DSWD for genuine care, timely and compassionate service for our people.)

Mabuhay kayo. (Long live!)

Ituloy natin ang laban kontra human trafficking at maging sa lahat ng pagsasamantala sa ating mamamayan. (Let us continue our fight against human trafficking and all forms of exploitation on our people.) ###