A Lack of Transparency

From the Harvard Crimson:

By Niharika S. Jain & Tara Suri

In a New Delhi village where a staggering 85 percent of women are victims of sex trafficking, the Najafgarh Community Centre is imprinted with the sign of Venus, the symbol for the female gender and for the anti-trafficking organization “Apne Aap Women Worldwide.” On its website, Apne Aap says it runs the Najafgarh Community Centre for the empowerment of women and children, a claim that it makes to donors worldwide. Unfortunately, the striking symbol and the large letters etched below it spelling out “Apne Aap” seem to be the organization’s only mark on the village.

We learned all this when we arrived in Najafgarh this summer with a bold idea to help the villagers transform their situation. After reading about Apne Aap and corresponding with its founder, Ruchira Gupta, we raised $20,000 to fund a vocational training program that would teach the women to sew and provide a sustainable job option as an alternative to prostitution. After an initial $12,000 donation, we received monthly reports from Apne Aap listing names of women and children involved in programs at the Community Centre. Yet we also received desperate e-mails from the community coordinator complaining that Apne Aap was not allocating money appropriately. But in light of the international accolades the organization had been receiving for its efforts to help female sex workers, we were loath to think our $12,000 contribution had been misused, much less that the reports Apne Aap was sending us were blatant misrepresentations. Instead, we hoped this project would allay our exasperation with the sexism and inefficiency we had witnessed on previous visits to the country of our heritage.

Our quixotism was shattered when we finally visited Najafgarh. The “Community Centre” that Apne Aap claims to run is a dank two-room building accompanied by a weathered eight-feet-wide by 10-feet-wide rug placed on the dirt where the children sit. More than half of the children do not attend school, and the informal education “class” for the children has no teacher or curriculum; instead, the kids sprawl themselves on the rug, drawing on slate boards and occasionally chucking pieces of chalk. The vocational training program is a daily sewing lesson taught by a 15-year-old village girl to five of her peers, instead of to the 19 girls and women Apne Aap claimed were attending. The women are completely disillusioned and continue to work in the sex trade. Indeed, after spending several weeks working in Najafgarh, we found that Apne Aap had nearly no presence there, apart from a few foreign interns it sporadically stationed there to “teach English.” Devastated by this farce of an initiative, we contacted the organization to ascertain the fate of our donation. After applying significant pressure upon the organization, we were granted a meeting with the founder, who offered to return $4,000, an offer that remains unfulfilled.

Read more

Slave Trader Joe's?

Is Trader Joe's Selling Slave Picked Produce?

By Amanda Kloer
September 09, 2010

Trader Joe's presents itself as a hip, progressive place to shop, full of vegetarian options and free from the plethora of hot orange processed snacks found elsewhere. But Trader Joe's refuses to take one very critical progressive step and join the Coalition of Immokalee Workers' (CIW) Campaign for Fair Food. And because of their refusal, you might just be buying slave-picked produce from those friendly, Hawaiian shirt-wearing joes.

Modern-day slavery is a reality for many farm workers right here in the U.S. In Florida, over 1,000 people have been identified as trafficked in fields and on farms, picking the food we eat every day. Farm workers have also been trapped in slavery or seriously abusive conditions in California, Washington, North Carolina, Maryland, and several other states with large agricultural industries. Because the laws governing agriculture are different than those regulating other industries in the U.S., many of these workers don't have the same legal protections the rest of us do.

Trader Joe's is no stranger to dealing with labor and transparency concerns. Two years ago, a 17-year-old girl suffered a fatal heat stroke while picking grapes for Charles Shaw wine, the "Two Buck Chuck" Trader Joe's is famous for. And folks over Change.org's Sustainable Food property are asking the company for better transparency in their organic food sourcing. TJ's has also gotten flack for selling un-sustainable seafood and fish from places like Thailand and Bangladesh, where slavery in the fishing industry is common. That's a pretty poor track record for a company with a progressive, conscious customer base.

This is where you, that conscious customer, come in. As a consumer, you have the power to ensure the workers who grow and harvest your food are getting fair pay for their work and are being treated with dignity. The CIW's Campaign for Fair Food harnesses the purchasing power of the food industry for the betterment of farm worker wages and working conditions. Over the past decade, CIW has used the campaign to get some of the largest food purchasers in the country to support fairer labor standards for farm workers in the U.S., including a zero tolerance policy for slavery and transparent supply chains. Current participants include Subway, McDonald's, and Whole Foods. Now, Trader Joe's has the opportunity to join them and take a stand against slavery and farm worker exploitation.

Please, take a minute to ask Trader Joe's to join the Campaign for Fair Food and ensure that they aren't selling their customers slave-picked produce.

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Trader Joe's has a wide reputation for being a company where people can purchase food and feel good about it. Unfortunately the secrecy of the organization, their unwillingness to join the Coalition of Immokalee Workers' (CIW) Campaign for Fair Food and some of their practices put this feeling into question. One of these practices includes sourcing unsustainable seafood from Thailand and Bangladesh where slave labor in the seafood industry is unfortunately not uncommon. Additionally, the death of a 17 year old who was picking grapes for Trader Joe's wine has also created concern among activist. Please visit this site and click the take action button to sign your name to the petition asking Trader Joe's to ensure fair and safe labor practices. Let them know their customers (and the community as a whole if you are not a customer) care.

Private Sector-NGO Cooperation to Combat Human Trafficking in Ukraine

On June 18, representatives from the nongovernmental, international and private sectors gathered in Kyiv to discuss building private sector and NGO partnership to combat human trafficking in Ukraine at a conference sponsored by the International Organization Mission to Ukraine and USAID.

From the IOM press release:

"IOM Ukraine, in tandem with its network of Ukrainian NGOs dedicated to eradicating the evil of human trafficking, have begun to enlist the assistance of the private sector to build the sustainability of counter-trafficking initiatives in Ukraine. Key speakers at the conference will include representatives of Ukrainian and international companies who have demonstrated corporate social responsibility and an unmistakable willingness to collaborate with IOM on anti-trafficking campaigns and projects."



Over 60 participants from Ukrainian NGOs, the private sector and international organizations took part in the panel discussions and the interactive sessions aimed at finding common ground between private sector businesses and non-governmental organizations working to combat trafficking. The panelists came from major companies already doing socially responsible work as well as NGO directors who have had some success bringing in private donors.

Here are the profiles and presentation summaries of some of the companies and organizations that provided speakers for the conference:

Galnaftogaz

Galnaftogaz is a Ukrainian fuel retail company with filling stations all over the country. The company recently took part in an information campaign that posted large billboards at entry and exit points on Ukraine's borders warning about the dangers of trafficking with hotline numbers. The stated objectives of the campaign were to 1.) provide Ukrainians going abroad with safe migration information, 2.) inform Ukrainians returning to their home country about the National Counter-Trafficking hotline and 3.) to raise public awareness on the issue of human trafficking. According to the company, they choose to cooperate in combating trafficking because, "Everyday we indirectly face consequences of this problem: our filling stations service buses with potential migrants, relatives of our employees can be victims of this problem, etc."

Their approach: Create new workplaces, offer quality business education, reassure citizens that it is worth staying in Ukraine to work, and warn people about the possible problems of leaving the country for uncertain work.


Microsoft Ukraine

Microsoft runs multiple community partnership programs that provide skills training and technology as well as initiating the Coalition for Child Safety Online to help combat cyber crimes affecting children. The Unlimited Potential - Community Technology Skills Program has multiple components. Two that directly affect the fight against human trafficking include the "Learn IT to Find a Job" program, which works with local State Employment Centers and NGOs to provide access to technology skills training to job-seekers (thus lowering the prospects of deciding to leave for work abroad by providing attractive job skills), and the "Information Dissemination and Equal Access" or IDEA project, which was launched in collaboration with Project Harmony International. IDEA Centers offer free monthly training and internet access to centers that provide skills classes to vulnerable groups. Seven centers have been established across the country, and many of these offer training to victims of trafficking.

Kyivstar

Kyivstar is one of Ukraine's largest telecommunications companies and a national mobile operator. The company was recently honored by the IOM for their work with anti-trafficking initiatives. Kyivstar joined together with two other mobile operators to establish a toll-free number "527," which, when dialed, routes the call to a hotline with operators who provide advice and warnings regarding finding work abroad. These operators are also trained to identify and assist people who were exploited while abroad.

Western Union

In 2008, Western Union, which offers financial services and money transfer operations, cooperated with the International Organization for Migration's campaign to raise awareness on the trafficking issue in Ukraine. Brochures are available at over 350 locations of the Ukrainian Financial Group with Western Union Money Transfer services, and a new initiative concerning reintegration assistance to victims of trafficking is about to be launched. The company commits to corporate citizenship in order "to facilitate global economic empowerment and help families stay connected, overcome barriers and realize their dreams.

ADECCO

Every day, ADECCO helps over 700,000 labor migrants to find work through the netwrok of more than 37,000 employees and over 7,000 branch offices in more than 60 countries and territories. The company provides language training as well as integration assistance for people with various levels of experience and matches them with employers who are looking for people with a certain set of skills. The placement process takes about 3 to 5 months on average.

Brainstorming and NGO presentation


One of the NGO leaders that spoke was also a participant in my recent case study project. Elvira Mruchkovska of Suchasnyk in Chernivtsi. The organization conducts programs that help former victims develop business skills, as well as gain support for entrepreneurship projects. There was a also a project recently that helped support female victims through manufacturing crafts and promoting them in Ukraine and abroad.


The event ended with a few brainstorming sessions where NGOs and private sector participants spoke together about how NGOs can approach businesses to help support their activities including understanding business motivations, doing research on the goals of companies to identify ways to approach them with mutual benefits involved in the project, coming up with creative ideas for projects that target businesses would support, being able to explain the advantages of the organization's work to businesses, among many other ideas.

*All photos were taken by the IOM.

Slavery in Albania

By Agnieszka Rakoczy

From the Financial Times:

Brikena Puka’s well-groomed look and confident style suggest she works for an international corporation. In fact she is the administrator of the Psycho-Social Centre “Vatra”, a non-governmental organisation that tries to prevent human trafficking and help its victims return to a normal life.Vatra (the Albanian word for “hearth”) is based in the southern port of Vlora.

“We co-operate with the police throughout Albania. Most of the women we assist are referred to us by them, but we also have cases sent to us by other NGOs. Some girls come on their own and some are brought by their families,” Ms Puka said.

Vatra offers accommodation, medical assistance, individual and group psychological treatment, vocational training, legal assistance and help with establishing contact with their families. It also works to alert communities at risk about their vulnerability to trafficking. It has assisted about 1,200 victims, of whom half came from the Roma and “Egyptian” communities, the country’s poorest.

Ms Puka says women are lured by traffickers using fake engagements, actual marriages, and job offers. A number were kidnapped. Some of the victims are sold by their families. Others go willingly.

There are no accurate figures on how many Albanian women have been illegally trafficked abroad and forced to work as prostitutes since the end of communism in 1991. A senior government official says a frequently-mentioned figure of 30,000 is too high.

The US government’s “Trafficking in Persons” report issued last June listed Albania as a “Tier 2” country, the category for countries still not complying fully with minimum standards for elimination of trafficking. But it added that Albania “is making significant efforts to do so”.

Two years ago the Albanian government placed a three-year ban on speedboats and other small private vessels using its coastal waters, in effect closing one of the most popular routes used by drug and people smugglers.

Reforms of the penal code have made all kinds of trafficking a serious crime, punished with prison sentences between seven and 15 years and heavy fines for those found guilty of trafficking women or children.

The government has launched a national strategy for combating trafficking in human beings, covering prevention, conviction, and victim protection and rehabilitation. “It is a very important document,” says Iva Zajmi, deputy interior minister and national co-ordinator for anti-trafficking in human beings. “It is about slavery of our citizens. It is the government’s job to help these people.”While the number of victims may be dropping, the forms of exploitation are changing, she says. On the other hand, women know more about trafficking and its attendant risks.“

"People have been informed and warned, and we have signed co-operation agreements with police and prosecutors in other countries so it is not that easy any more,” Ms Zajmi says.

According to the US report, 57 traffickers were convicted in 2006. But only 20 out of 227 suspected or identified victims offered to testify against traffickers.While victims are allowed to file civil lawsuits against their traffickers, this rarely happens because of widespread mistrust of the police and the judicial system, the report said.

Read the full article

Trafficking Challenges in the Philippines

The Manila skyline

Here's an interesting article that touches on the role of parents in recruitment, the hesitation of trafficking victims to pursue legal cases and the initial aversion that many victims have of NGO workers upon being rescued.

From the Sun Star:

PHILIPPINES- Sheila, Valerie and Bridget (not their real names), who hailed from poor families here, have set their sights to as far as Manila, Brunei, and Japan for employment to alleviate the plight of their respective families. However, instead of working as domestic helpers, they ended up as prostitutes.

"They have been promised heaven, but hell greeted them," Rebecca Magante, secretariat head of the Local Inter-Agency Task Force Against Trafficking in Person (LIATFAT), stressed how the three became victims of human trafficking.

General Santos is not only considered as the Tuna Capital of the Philippines but has also been considered a "hotspot" because of the proliferation of bars and transit houses. This is according to the Visayan Forum Foundation, a non-government organization that seeks to help curb human trafficking incidence in the country. Human trafficking proliferates in the city with the presence of sea and airports, as well as its proximity to neighboring East Asian countries like Brunei, Indonesia, and Malaysia. This city also serves as gateway for overland transport for the southern and central parts of Mindanao.

On top of its strategic location, human trafficking thrives in this city in what Magante termed as parental consent. "The sad fact is that parents egged their children to bite the offer of the recruiters in the hope these children would send back money to the family," she said.

From 2003 to 2007, human trafficking violation reared its ugly head in 21 of the city's 26 barangays (villages), 20 of them in Lagao and 13 in Apopong. About 89 victims came outside the city. Even if the figure is low for the past four years, Magante believed that this is still significant considering it involves violation of individual's rights. "Victims in previous years were children, but for 2005 to 2007, adults also became primary victims. This means that trafficking cuts across all ages," Magante said.

Of the 204 cases of human trafficking from 2003 to 2007, 87 were less than 18 years old and the rest were of legal ages. There were more female victims than males.

Only 11 cases have been filed in local courts, 10 at the barangay level, while 183 have not been filed at all, according to Liatfat data.

Rose Delima, City Social Welfare and Development Office point person for human trafficking, explained that only a few cases have reached the courts due to the lack of interests of the aggrieved parties to go after the suspects.

"After the victims are in the custody of the parents or their relatives, they no longer care to pursue the case. They consider it a hassle as they try to eke a living," Delima said. In fact, in most cases the task force responded, Delima stressed they are cast as the "villains."

"The victims often thought that we're obstructing their dreams for a better life when we rescued them, but in fact we're just protecting them from the claws of exploitation," Delima explained.

Read the full article

The Power of Unreasonable People

From the Harvard University Gazette:

There’s a desire for change, especially among the young, “a spirit sweeping across this country and indeed across the world,” said David Gergen, professor of public service at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government (HKS) and director of its Center for Public Leadership.

Gergen’s remarks at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum opened a panel discussion Monday (March 3) on social entrepreneurship and the power of what he called “unreasonable people.” The term referred to panelist Pamela Hartigan’s recent book, co-written with John Elkington, “The Power of Unreasonable People: How Social Entrepreneurs Create Markets That Change the World,” published by the Harvard Business School Press in February. Hartigan is managing director for the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship.

Since the heyday of social activism in the ’60s and ’70s, characterized by charged anti-war protests and the impassioned Civil Rights Movement, experts agree interest in nonprofit work and civic engagement has waned dramatically.

A recent national study of 6,000 emerging nonprofit leaders by CompassPoint Nonprofit Services, The Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Meyer Foundation, and Idealist.org found the nonprofit sector could be in dire straits if it is unable to attract and keep talented employees in leadership roles.

After introducing the event, Gergen handed the moderating duties to his son, Christopher Gergen, a founding partner of New Mountain Ventures, an entrepreneurial consulting and leadership development firm. For a definition of social entrepreneurship, the younger Gergen turned to panelist Stacey Childress M.B.A. ’00, lecturer in the General Management Unit at the Harvard Business School and co-founder of the Public Education Leadership Project at Harvard University. Childress defined the term as “the pursuit of an opportunity to create pattern-breaking social change regardless of the resources you currently control.”

Unlike other organizations in the social sector that focus on reducing the effects of a problem, she said, social entrepreneurs try to change the problem itself. Social entrepreneurs develop new theories about the root cause of an existing problem, create organizations that can eliminate it, and adapt their strategies based on outcomes, said Childress, in an effort to “change the way the world works.” In addition, she said, social entrepreneurs realize they can’t do it alone, and enlist the help of larger organizations to achieve their goals.

In the question-and-answer session, the panel acknowledged that more must be done to attract the next generation to the nonprofit sector. Colleges and universities are, panelists agreed, poised to take the lead. Strategies include encouraging students to consider civic engagement work as a viable career, forgiving loans for students taking nonprofit jobs, and supporting better on-campus recruitment resources for interested students. “We do have a responsibility,” said Childress, “that we haven’t fully embraced and realized yet.”

Read the full article

Trafficking Victims Are Getting Younger

Photographs of young Filipina women hired as overseas workers. Though trained as entertainers, many face pressures to enter the sex industry.

From the Sun Star:

Philippines- The victims of human trafficking are getting younger and younger as more and more women fall prey to the false promises of people offering them a better life.

Visayan Forum Foundation Inc. (VFFI) president Ma. Cecilia Flores-Oebanda revealed this in a video shown during a media training workshop conducted by the Center for Community Journalism and Development (CCJD) and the Asia Foundation last week at Parklane International Hotel.

Asked to elaborate, Ligaya Abadesco, VFFI field coordinator for Cebu and Dumaguete, told Sun.Star Cebu that in the past, the victims that the VFFI intercepted at seaports and brought to its halfway houses for temporary shelter and counseling were adults.

But in recent years, the VFFI has been intercepting 14- and 15-year-olds.

She explained that traffickers have been recruiting younger and younger victims because they command higher prices in the sex trade.

Republic Act 9208 or “The Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2003” defines human trafficking as the recruitment, transportation, transfer or harboring, or receipt of persons with or without the victim’s consent or knowledge by means of threat, coercion, abduction, fraud, deception or abuse of power for the purpose of exploitation.

Exploitation includes prostitution and other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor or services, slavery, servitude or the removal or sale of organs.

Targets
During the forum, VFFI regional coordinator for the Visayas Vicente Abadesco said traffickers target women and children from 12-22 years old.

The women are transported from the rural areas—usually in the Visayas and Mindanao—where they came from, to urban areas in the country or abroad where, instead of the decent jobs in factories or restaurants they were promised, they find themselves working as prostitutes in brothels.

Abadesco said it is difficult to tell exactly how many women and children have been trafficked because of the illegal and covert nature of the activity, aside from the fact that women who are trafficked usually change their names.

But from July 2001 to June 2007 alone, the VFFI intercepted and provided halfway house services to some 7,996 victims.

The problem is much bigger though.

The United Nations estimates that there may already have been anywhere from 600,000 to 800,000 victims of human trafficking from the Philippines.

Clueless on rights
The difficulty in tracking victims also comes amid the low level of consciousness of people about the law and their rights, and the prevailing attitude of communities that people have a right to migrate to seek a better life.

Red Batario, executive director of the CCJD, said that in some cases it is the parents of the victims themselves who allow their children to be trafficked.

“At the back of their minds, they know what will happen to their children,” he said. But driven by desperation as a result of poverty, the parents just give in.

Despite the number of women and children known to have been trafficked, there have been convictions in only 10 cases filed against traffickers in the country since RA 9208 was passed, said Nancy Lozano, state counsel at the Department of Justice and a member of the secretariat of the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking (Philippines).

One of these judgments was handed down in Cebu.

On July 20, 2007, Regional Trial Court Branch 14 Judge Raphael Yrastorza Sr. found a couple from Barangay Kamagayan guilty of qualified trafficking of persons and imposed on them the penalty of life imprisonment and a fine of P3 million.

The pimps were tried for the more serious crime of “qualified trafficking” because one of the nine females they offered for sale to the undercover National Bureau of Investigation agents in the entrapment operation that led to their arrest in 2004, was a minor, at only 15 years old.

The case is now in the appellate court.

Prevention
VFFI regional coordinator Abadesco hopes more people will get involved in the prevention of human trafficking.

To help determine if women and children traveling in a group on a ship may be trafficked victims, he said to watch out for these warning signs: the bulk buying of tickets; the individual embarking and disembarking of the members of the group who always regroup once inside the vehicle; and the possession by the usually lone adult in the group, the recruiter, of all the travel and personal documents of everyone in the group.

Normally, the members of the group are also told not to talk to anyone, and to say, if challenged, that they are 18 years old even if they are minors.

To emphasize the scale of the problem, Abadesco said no country is immune to trafficking and that the causes of trafficking go far beyond mere poverty to the poor values of parents and the maneuvers of exploitative recruiters feeding an ever-increasing demand for cheap labor as the Philippines opens itself up further to tourism.

Pieces of a Man

Anti-Trafficking Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in the Philippines

For background information on human trafficking click here.


Gil Scott-Heron, Pieces of a Man (1971)

I have immersed myself in the subject of human trafficking (trafficking) for the last four months. My goal: develop an overview of anti-trafficking non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the Philippines looking specifically for examples of successful programs dealing with prevention, protection of victims, prosecution of traffickers, or rehabilitation and reintegration of victims.

I’ve spent the bulk of my time conducting interviews with NGO staff and victims of trafficking. Other times I attend conferences on trafficking and related subjects (economic development in the Philippines, migrant rights) or furiously peck at my cell phone sending a flurry of text messages to schedule a week’s worth of meetings.

At this point I have developed a slightly-beyond-beginner understanding of trafficking, its causes in the Philippines, and what is being done to stop it. After four months of research I do not feign any level of expertise, but I have had the fortunate opportunity to speak with many knowledgeable individuals who know the ins and outs of trafficking in the Philippines and have dedicated the last decade or more of their lives to combating this terrible injustice. As a result I have developed a trafficking cheat sheet of sorts by gleaning perspectives, facts, and challenges of the NGO community directly from those working in the trenches.

What I am left with is hours of interviews waiting to be transcribed- hours of digital tape documenting anti-trafficking programs ranging from theater groups that perform musicals on trafficking to raise awareness to young men’s camps that teach gender sensitivity to combat the culture of machismo in the Philippines to drop-in centers where victims of trafficking can receive psychosocial counseling. I have recorded victims describing their trafficking experiences. I have recorded frustrated lawyers lamenting on the state of the Filipino justice system. I have recorded grassroots NGOs that do not have the know-how, contacts, or resources to market their work to an international audience for funding, but do excellent work all the same.

I have my work cut out for me


Monk

The goal of my research is to showcase promising anti-trafficking programs and NGOs that are making an impact. I am looking for organizations that have been able to develop effective direct services for victims. I am looking for organizations that have been able to develop, advocate, and push through trafficking-related legislation. I am looking for organizations that track data, follow up with clients post-program to gauge effectiveness, and/or network with government and law enforcement agencies to establish relationships that will speed up the process of rescue, rehabilitation, and reintegration of victims. I am looking for NGOs that perform and achieve in the face of a corrupt system that is often based on payoffs, bribes, and personal connections rather than justice.

Am I searching for the impossible?


Cuuurtis

Sometimes I ask myself that question. There are dozens of trafficking and migration-related NGOs in the Philippines. Most do incredible work to address a monstrous problem. My admiration only increases when you consider the political and legal context within which they operate. Many of these NGOs are grassroots based operations inconspicuously tucked away on an ordinary street in an ordinary neighborhood, quietly saving the world one victim at a time (ok, maybe I’m being over dramatic, but I like the phrase and it is not entirely untrue).

It is in these often unmarked buildings that these men and women work overtime, get paid a pittance, and face an endless stream of frustrations and challenges interrupted by the rare but significant achievement like the passing of the anti-trafficking law in the Philippines in 2003, the creation of the Interagency Coalition Against Trafficking in 2004 that brings together government agencies and NGOs, or the slow but steady development of productive, collaborative anti-trafficking relationships between NGOs and law enforcement that expedite and improve victim rescues and reintegration.

I want to present the role of anti-trafficking NGOs in the Philippines in relation to other stakeholders: national and international governments, law enforcement, international organizations, and the media. NGOs in the Philippines are in a unique position because, at least concerning trafficking, they have a disproportionate and at times inappropriate level of responsibility due to the government’s inability or unwillingness to implement the country’s comprehensive human trafficking law. In general, the government serves as a referral mechanism to NGOs: instead of having tangible programs and direct services, the government often refers victims of trafficking to NGOs to be rescued, protected, legally represented in court, rehabilitated, and reintegrated. And all this responsibility is dumped on NGOs that are often under funded and understaffed.

I want to raise awareness of trafficking


Marvin

I want people to know that men, women and children (but mainly women and children in the Philippines) are being recruited from the countryside, deceived into prostitution, domestic servitude, or some other form of forced labor, and from that point on pimped and exploited from every angle, violated physically and mentally, raped, beaten, abused, stripped of their dignity and humanity, and finally, when there is no value left in these human commodities, kicked to the curb to fend for themselves.

It is important to know this, especially for those living in developed countries who have the economic clout to make a difference, because trafficking cannot be effectively addressed unless people are aware of it. It is amazing what the cost of an organic cranberry scone from Whole Foods and a Starbucks grande latte with soy milk and spices (also organic) can get you in the third world. You can do an amazing amount of good or bad in a country like the Philippines for the price of a McDonalds Happy Meal.

The street value of prostitutes in Davao City, Mindanao is $6 a pop, which is split 50/50 with the pimp. Many prostitutes are young girls ages 12 to 24 who have been trafficked from the countryside.


Miles

Trafficking is such a powerful, emotionally charged issue that at times it seems mundane. As if my mind has to deceive itself into believing that it is not really that bad, sometimes I think “hey, I’ve seen worse things in Silence of the Lambs.” Hollywood has supplied me with worse terror. I am numb, immune to the horror stories and desperate eyes.

There are other times when I feel Oedipal rage and utter hopelessness. It is often overwhelming, especially if you try and comprehend a system, like the Philippines and its relevant subsystems such as the government, law enforcement, NGOs, the economy, the culture, etc., and the changes that need to be made to effectively address an issue like trafficking.

There are other times when I feel like my eyes have transformed into mini Nile rivers with an endless current that coats a throbbing, heaving chest with the same notes found in Miles Davis’ Green & Blue.

Gil Scott-Heron said the revolution will not be televised

I believe him. I see it every day, but it doesn’t take the form I expected. It doesn’t fulfill my raised-in-the USA ambition, glory, and one-man army-ism expectations at all. It doesn’t even come close.

Instead, I see change like a dripping faucet- small, constant, unending drops. Slow and steady. Drop after drop. Persistent. Dedicated. I see men and women fighting to improve the situation for modern day slaves whether it be through raising awareness, advocating for tougher legislation, pushing the government to live up to its promises, providing temporary shelter for victims, organizing livelihood programs, and so much more.

I see strength and determination that I once relegated to fairytales and idealistic wishful thinking. And all this in the face of obstacles that run so deep, that penetrate the very core of a culture, it’s social rules and organizational behavior that to confront them is like standing in front of a line of hulking tanks armed with nothing but your conviction and stopping them in their tracks- impossible, yet it has been done.

The truth is NGOs in the Philippines are working against widespread systemic corruption and historical cultural biases that promote/influence/encourage trafficking. Despite having the odds stacked against them, NGOs have made progress. It is no coincidence that all women and child rights legislation in the Philippines was created and passed through the grit, determination, and resilience of NGOs. It is no coincidence that the public is beginning to recognize trafficking as a serious issue and that judges and lawyers are learning how to use the trafficking law in their courtrooms while police are being trained to identify victims and collect evidence properly.

At times it seems that change is slow and hard fought, if not impossible, but the truth is things would be so much worse without NGOs: organizations like the Visayan Forum Foundation, Kanlungan Centre Foundation, PREDA, and CATW-AP. Without them, trafficking victims would have no support system and no hope of rescue or rehabilitation while laws protecting their legal rights would not exist. At the very least NGOs are holding the line so that trafficking victims do not slip through the cracks of the system and are given an opportunity, however small, to pick up the pieces and rediscover value in life.

It may take years upon years and lives upon lives to effectively address an issue like trafficking, but even drops of water can eventually cut through a mountain and transform a landscape.

But seriously, beyond the corny metaphors and crafted prose, it is reassuring and inspiring to know that people are plugging away, night and day, whether in the limelight or behind the scenes, in spacious offices or forgotten corners, to end trafficking and abolish slavery once and for all.


Bataan

Research Project Update

So far I have interviewed staff and observed programs from the following organizations:

Kanlungan Centre Foundation
Scalabrini Migration Center
Coalition Against Trafficking in Women- Asia Pacific
Visayan Forum Foundation
PREDA
Unlad Kabayan
Women’s Crisis Center
DAWN
Batis Center
Batis Aware
Talikala
Lawig Bubai
Department of Education
Buklod
WomenLEAD
Child Alert
*Some NGOs do not currently have websites

My interviews have focused on identifying an organization's mission, goals, programs, evaluative mechanisms, achievements, challenges, needs, and hopes among other things.

Thus far I have focused on NGOs, however, the next phase of my project is to interview relevant government and law enforcement agencies.

Here’s to the remaining six months.

Salud