Acting DSWD chief urges new administration to address human trafficking

MANILA, Philippines - Acting Social Welfare Secretary Celia Yangco yesterday said the increased incidents of human trafficking in the last seven years are caused by lack of job opportunities in the country.

DSWD data showed that 2,298 cases of human trafficking were reported from 2003 up to the first quarter of 2010.              Yangco said most of the victims were women and children who came from the provinces to seek their fortune in Metro Manila and overseas.

Most of the victims only finished elementary. “They are vulnerable because they are not well-educated,” Yangco said.

Non-government organization EnGenderRights said the government must prosecute traffickers and at the same time address poverty, the root cause of human trafficking. EnGenderRights executive director Claire Padilla said many children and young women who come from large families are being trafficked. Human traffickers proliferate because the victims do not report them.

“There are dubious recruitment agencies which are still registered at POEA (Philippine Overseas Employment Administration) because the trafficked women didn’t file charges against them,” she said.

On Tuesday, the US State Department said the Philippines remains in the Tier 2 watch list of countries whose governments have failed to improve efforts against human trafficking. The State Department was critical of the country’s performance in all three benchmarks - prevention, protection and prosecution.                                              

“Though the government filed several labor trafficking cases for prosecution, it has never convicted any offenders of labor trafficking,” the report said. “Despite overall efforts, the government did not show evidence of significant progress in convicting trafficking offenders.”             

Migrante International has urged president-elect Benigno Aquino III to dismiss and prosecute government officials involved in human trafficking.

The group claims to have a list of government officials involved in human trafficking. The list was created based on the complaints it received in the past few years.                       

“It’s an open secret. People inside the government very well know who among them benefits from this heinous crime,” Migrante chair Garry Martinez said.

He, however, declined to reveal the names in the list until they have gathered sufficient data for the filing of charges before the Office of the Ombudsman.

“If Noynoy is willing to work with us, we can sit down with him, reveal our watchlist and plan how to make these officials pay for their crime,” Martinez said. - With Mayen Jaymalin