Coming to Legal Terms with The Anti Trafficking Law | sexandsensibilities.com (Second of five parts)

Posted on 19. Mar, 2010 by in Government SASsy

 
Human trafficking is the world’s third largest black market industry after weapons and drugs. The United Nations estimates that 12.3 million individuals live in forced labor worldwide, and about 70 percent of them are women or girls trafficked into sex slavery.

In the Philippines, the estimates of individuals trafficked each year are in the hundreds of thousands. [SAS Editor's note: The numbers may vary because there is no official centralized database to track the number of trafficked individuals.]

In 2003, Republic Act 9208 or The Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act was passed.
The passage of this law made the Philippines one of the few countries in Asia to have enacted an anti-trafficking legislation. The law established an Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking (IACAT) composed of government agencies, non-government organizations and other civic organizations to develop and implement comprehensive programs to prevent trafficking.

Jean Enriquez is Executive Director of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW-Asia Pacific), an NGO who played active part in lobbying for the passage of RA 9208. Jean dissects RA 9208 and helps us understand the complex issue of human trafficking.

1) In brief, what is the Anti-Trafficking Law?
The Anti-Trafficking Law or RA 9208 criminalizes acts of trafficking. Trafficking in this law is defined thus as the recruitment, transfer, transport, harboring or receipt of persons by means of the use of force, theft or even abuse of authority or inability of persons. This is done for the purpose of sexual exploitation or labor exploitation, involuntary servitude, or removal or sale of organs .

The Anti-Trafficking Law also includes clear provisions for the protection of all victims, regardless of consent. It also covers trafficking within borders or across borders and it also considers that victims, while saying that women and children are especially vulnerable, may also include men.

2) Zeroing in on the aspect of sex trafficking, how is this defined in R.A. 9208?
The very definition of sex trafficking already clearly defines the parameters of the criminalized act. It is about using recruitment or employment, or matching women with foreign men for the purpose of sexual exploitation. The are clear provisions in R.A. 9208 that pertain to sex trafficking.


I think sexual exploitation means not only prostitution, but also pornography. It can also be bride trafficking and other such similar definitions.

3) What was the trafficking situation particular to the Philippines that made this law necessary?
It might be important to know that before and during the lobbying for this law — which we lobbied for for 9 years, we were going around the country and saw there was no name for this kind of violation of women’s human rights; this recruitment of women who are desperate for work, but are brought to situations of sexual exploitation.

The women and the mothers would say that they just met bad luck. They would only attribute it to misfortune because illegal recruitment is commonplace here. They didn’t know that there is an organized force preying on the vulnerability and desperation of women for additional income; these women who think it’s better to leave the country to save their family from starving and dying of hunger.

But it [trafficking] is not only in the Philippines. It is a global problem that has already allowed businesses and establishments to earn a lot from the backs of these women who are sexually exploited for prostitution like those working in brothels, in massage parlors and even those fronting as entertainment establishments, but are actually selling women to buyers for sexual acts and the like.

4) What were the changes brought about by the passage of R.A. 9208?
Of course the law, upon announcement, started facilitating the conviction or prosecution of traffickers who have long been immune to criminal liability. Also, it gave the woman confidence to seek justice. Similar to other forms of sexual paradigms, it is not easy for the women to come out, but RA 9208 enabled more victims to come out and claim that they were actually victims of sex trafficking. The law also somehow increased the reportage of the issue because the law provides for comprehensive support for victims and also it ensures that the sexually trafficked women are not criminalized, thus giving them a sense of protection and security.

Because before, the government would usually blame them. They [sex trafficked women] would be told “You know what the dangers are out there, but you allowed your passports be falsified, therefore you are in connivance.”

5) We tend to think of trafficking as a remote reality that doesnt affect us. Why should the issue of trafficking be relevant to us, even as ordinary women?
I believe that women being sexually trafficked should bother us because it again gives the statement to all of us that there are men who think that there is a woman who can be bought and used sexually – which is similar to rape.

I am affected by every rape that happens because it’s a statement to all of us women that when you go out there in the middle of the night, dis oras ng gabi, or you’re dressed skimpily or you give signals, then there’s a sanction against you.

The same is true for sex trafficking because it’s sexual violence, it’s violence against women. R.A. 9208, I think it reminds society that we, women are not commodities to be bought and sold. And we ought to educate ourselves and the rest of the public that this is a standard already which tells men that tell the men you cannot use money in exchange for women’s bodies.

Coming to Legal Terms with The Anti Trafficking Law | sexandsensibilities.com