| A faded brown rosary hangs on one corner of her bed inside a shelter. It has been two weeks since 15-year-old Carla (not her real name) was rescued after being forced to work in a brothel in Cavite. “Sabi nila maganda daw sa Maynila, impyerno pala [They said it’s great to be in Manila, but it’s hell].”  Carla was recruited, along with five other girls her age, in a remote village in South Cotabato where she stayed with her aunt. She was promised a salary of P3,000 to work as a salesgirl in a grocery store in Manila but ended up working as a prostitute in Cavite. Poverty itself dehumanizes. But the pain inflicted on the victims of human trafficking like Carla is unimaginable, searing the very core of their souls, and leaving permanent scars. Carla believed she could bear the physical pain and humiliation as her male employer turned her into a human “punching bag.” During the morning, she would wake up with kicks and punches from her employer while he shouted invectives at her. She would clean the bar, wash clothes of her employers and do errands while she’s made to eat leftovers of the family. On her third night, she was asked to put on a skimpy dress and wear makeup. She was then forced to go out with two officers wearing uniforms of the Philippine Navy. “I thought I could tell them about my situation and ask for help,” said Carla, believing that those men are law enforcers. “But these men in uniform dragged me near the sea and alternately raped me inside a small boat ….they’re pigs,” Carla said tearfully in Tagalog. Carla languished for three months inside the brothel until one day, when her employer asked her to go with a woman who needed a baby sitter. But her new employer turned out to be another member of the syndicate and was supposed to bring her to Sabah to work as a prostitute. Along with two other girls, Carla was about to board a domestic flight in Manila going to Zamboanga—where they were to take a boat to Sabah—when they were intercepted by the police and immigration officers. They were consequently turned over to the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) and are now undergoing psychological rehabilitation through the Visayan Forum. Part of the statistics Carla is just one of the hundreds of thousands of victims of human trafficking in the Philippines. She now stays in one of the shelters of the Visayan Forum, where she is able to attend night school. The United Nations defines human trafficking as “the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability, or of 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.” The Philippines is considered one of the world’s sources and transit places for human trafficking due to its heavy dependence on migrant workers, 8 million of them working abroad. Around 600,000 to 800,000 people were trafficked worldwide in 2003, according to the 2010 US government report on Trafficking in Persons (TIP), a figure believed to be understated even, owing to so many unreported cases. At least 70 percent of them are women and children forced into prostitution and forced labor. In the Philippines estimates from the Visayan Forum indicates that around 10,000 reaching up to 100,000 victims are being trafficked every year within the country, as well as sent abroad in large-scale forced labor, slavery and sexual exploitation to destinations like Malaysia, Sudan, Syria, Nigeria, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and even as far as Eastern Europe. The latter figured prominently two weeks ago when alert immigration officials in Manila stopped 11 Filipino women about to fly to Bangkok as “tourists,” but who did not seem to have any idea about where they would stay, and where they will go. Quizzed by officials, they pointed to a Slovenian recruiter, later arrested, as the one holding their travel documents, and who was supposed to make them take a flight from Bangkok to India, where Slovenian consular officers would give them a visa to work in “hotels” in Eastern Europe. Cecile Oebanda-Flores, executive director of the Visayan Forum, said traffickers thrive in the multibillion-dollar global operation through underground networks with strong links with corrupt public officials and transport operators. She said syndicates clandestinely move victims of the modern-day slavery in connivance with corrupt public officials and transport operators in different ports and land routes in the Philippines. “Internal trafficking is the springboard for international trafficking. Worldwide recruitment relies on intricate processes that start in far-flung communities,” Oebanda-Flores said. “Every year, thousands of Filipino women and children are trapped through the cycle of trafficking into a life of slavery, sexual exploitation and human-rights violations.” Extreme poverty, conflict and seeming hopelessness drive people like Carla, who hailed from a strife-torn Cotabato village, and was lured by the false promises of a better life in Manila. In 2009 the International Labor Organization (ILO) estimated around 12.3 million victims of forced labor and other forms of bondage. In its global report titled, “The Cost of Coercion,” the ILO estimated that victims of forced labor lose an estimated $20 billion every year in unpaid earnings. ILO also lamented the fact that global economies continue to import and export
billions of dollars worth of products “tainted” by forced labor in manufacturing and raw materials procurement. Many countries, according to the ILO, also “knowingly and unknowingly” deport victims of human trafficking without giving them shelter and reintegration services. The ILO also argued that these economies continue to thrive amid the vulnerability of migrant populations, particularly people who have been trafficked. The governments of many developed nations like the United States, European capitals like France, the United Kingdom, Spain and Italy, rich Asian hubs like Singapore, Hong Kong and Malaysia, Arab financial centers like Dubai, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait have adopted tougher measures to rid their borders of unwanted foreign workers, particularly victims of trafficking. However, many of their citizens and industries have in past years been taking advantage of the vulnerability of the victims of human trafficking because they see these people as desperate to land jobs and will not dare complain to authorities even in the face of harassment, intimidation and abuses. Most of the victims and their families who fall prey to these syndicates also face difficulty getting out of bondage as they become heavily indebted to friends and the recruiters. Maid in Singapore At 24, Trina (not her real name) thought the job being offered to her in Singapore would ease the burden of her poor family in Alaminos, Pangasinan. A friend told her someone is recruiting people to work as household-service workers in Singapore. A week after she grabbed an offer to be a domestic helper in Singapore, Trina received a call from the recruiter asking for P13,500 to buy her tickets and process her employment. She was given only two weeks to raise the money and was forced to borrow from her mother’s friend. Trina went to Manila to process her work documents, including her passport and medical certificate, and take the examination. Trina never saw the female recruiter who regularly calls her to ask for money and merely tells her where to go and what do. Two weeks after she finished her work documents, she was asked to go to a fast-food store beside Baclaran Church to take the examination for employment. She was joined by five other female recruits. The recruiter called her up after a week and asked her to go back to the fast-food store near the Baclaran church. Someone handed her the plane tickets to Singapore and some travel documents. They were asked to pay anotherP2,600 each for the airport tax and other “expenses” going to the airport. Unknown to Trina and the five girls bound for Singapore, an immigration officer at the airport is already alerted on their flight schedule to allow them pass through the routine checks smoothly. “Basta sa Window 7 lang daw po kami pipila pagdating sa [we were just instructed to line up only at Window 7 when we reach] immigration,” said Trina. The girls were also reminded not to talk with each other during their travel so the authorities will not suspect them of being trafficked. Trina’s memory of the dates from the time the recruiter called her up until she arrived in Singapore was very precise. The way she remembers the dates appears very academic and she pours them out in rote, but not until she begins telling about her ordeal. As she began to relive her ordeal in Singapore, she pulled out a small orange checkered handkerchief and started to twist, fold and unfold it during the interview. Unaware of it, Trina was showing anger, frustration and pain from the way she mangled her handkerchief. Upon arrival in Singapore, they were all led to a house of a Chinese national where they were tasked to clean the two-story building for four consecutive days. They did not receive any pay from cleaning the house and doing all the chores for the Chinese national. On her fifth day there, Trina was brought to her employer, a Singaporean couple and their six-year-old son. “It was only during my first day that they were kind to me,” said Trina. Trina made a mistake in fixing the kitchen and her female employer started to shout at her while kicking her all over her body. At times, her male employer would hit her head with hardbound books that would really make her feel dizzy and left with bruises. Her employers allowed her to sleep only at 1 a.m. and would wake her up at 5 a.m. to help their child get ready for school. “The child is also cruel. After I take him to the shower, he would spit on my face and push the toothpaste cap in my eyes while I help him dress up,” recalled Trina in Filipino. Trina was never allowed to eat any decent meal. “I always eat their leftovers. Most of the time, they would put toothpick and used table napkins on those leftovers before they give them to me.” She was not allowed to stay inside the comfort room for more than five minutes, forcing “open the door [to] drag me out.” Their cruelty seemed to have a numbing effect on Trina. While trying to accept her miserable condition, she would always think that her salary would somehow repay the abuses that she suffered. But she was wrong. In the last three months, she did not receive a single cent from her employer. Trina was supposed to earn S$340 a month. She agreed to get only S$10 as allowance to buy her personal stuff. The entire amount was to be paid to her recruiter, to whom she “owed” a total of S$2,500. Her employers did not give her even the monthly S$10 as allowance. She talked to her recruiter and begged that she be transferred to another employer as she could no longer bear the cruelty of her masters. But the recruiter merely warned her she will be deported if she fails to complete payment of her debts. “I haven’t even sent any amount to my family back home. We’re so burdened by debts. I would rather bear the cruelty of my employers here than die of hunger with my family back home,” she recalled telling herself. But the physical abuses of her employers continued, prompting Trina to beg her female employer to help her find another employer. To her surprise, she was allowed to go. Her female employer even agreed to accompany her to another employer. “I grabbed all my bags immediately without checking their contents. Instead of taking me to another employer, I was brought to the immigration office where my boss asked the officers to check on my bags.” The officers found a S$50 bill in her bag and she was very certain her female employer placed the money there to find an excuse to have her jailed. Trina was made to sign a confession letter where she admitted to stealing money from her employer. The immigration officer brought her to the police and she was later detained at the Changi Prison for female offenders. She was sentenced to four weeks’ imprisonment. Her notorious recruiter even made up another crooked means to further bleed Trina’s family of their scarce resources. Trina’s mother received a call from the recruiter telling her to send P30,000 to bail out her daughter who was in jail for stealing money. The family had difficulty raising the money then but the recruiter kept calling up Trina’s mother, this time lowering the supposed amount for bail to P15,000. Trina’s brother, meanwhile, sensed that his family was being fooled all along and searched for the contact number of a nongovernment organization (NGO) in Singapore which was referred to him by a friend. Trina’s stay at the Changi prison for women was shortened to one week because of the good behavior she showed. The NGO was able to locate Trina inside the jail and processed her immediate repatriation. Culture of deception Human trafficking thrives in a culture of deception. The members of syndicates of this global menace are well-entranched and are successful in societies where poverty, despair and inequality are heavily felt among people. The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) has issued a deployment ban on certain countries facing war and conflict such as Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as in countries with unstable governments like Nigeria and Somalia. DFA executive director for migrant workers affairs Enrico Foz said the workers are barred from countries such as Lebanon, Syria and Jordan “based on the apparent absence of protection for foreign migrants.” However, such measure did not prevent the trafficking of workers for these countries as the number of undocumented Filipino workers even swelled. Director Foz said the deployment ban on Syria for household-service workers arose from rampant complaints from Filipinos that they are overworked, suffering from physical abuse, harassment, sexual abuse as well as unpaid salaries. The Commission on Filipinos Overseas (CFO) said there were at least 19,423 Filipino workers in Syria in 2008. Of this figure, only 135 are permanently employed while 13,288 work as temporary workers, mostly domestic help. There are also 6,000 undocumented Filipinos in Syria, who are apparently victims of trafficking. DFA statistics showed there are 31,000 Filipino workers in Jordan, mostly household-service workers. Of this figure, 16,000 of them were trafficked Filipinas who managed to get into Jordan despite employment restrictions. Kuwait is also one of the top destinations for victims of human trafficking, mostly female. Director Foz said of the 145,550 Filipino workers in Kuwait, only 550 are permanently deployed. More than 10,000 of them are trafficked Filipino workers and the rest are skilled and semiskilled workers, as well as female household-service workers. Female household workers are the most prone to physical and sexual abuse from employers in these Middle East countries but the situation can get worse if they are trafficked people because they have no legal protection from the host governments. The abuses of Arab employers are often unreported because the victims of trafficking are afraid to complain to authorities, as they could either end up in jail for lacking work permits, or they would no longer get their salaries. The death of 34-year-old Filipina maid Asria Samad Abdul who was tortured to death by her employer in Kuwait sent chills down the spine of veteran diplomats like Foz who has been exposed to cases of abuses against Filipino workers. Foz couldn’t hide his anger and frustration over the case of Asria as he confirmed that Asria’s employers, an Egyptian couple, brought her to the Kabd desert area and crushed her body under their vehicle to give an impression that she was run over by a motorist. The Kuwaiti police found the remains of Asria on July 17. The poor Filipino worker entered Kuwait legally but her suffering is far more brutal compared with the situation of undocumented workers. Foz said the DFA, through the embassy in Kuwait, has hired private lawyers to prosecute the Egyptian couple who are now held in jail. “We will prosecute for the intention of really convicting people behind these dastardly acts committed against our nationals,” said Foz. The Philippines is the third-largest source of migrant workers with more than 8 million of them deployed across the globe, next to China and India. But considering the fraction of migrant workers coming from China and India, which could not be even 5 percent of their population, the Philippines is considered the top sending country of migrant workers because 10 percent of its people are sent for work abroad. However, a huge number of them, a total of 653,609 Filipino workers are undocumented, according to the CFO statistics as of 2008. Two Asian capitals, Malaysia and Singapore, are host to the biggest bulk of undocumented Filipino migrant workers. CFO statistics showed that of the 243,683 Filipino workers in Malaysia, 128,000 are undocumented and only 89,681 are temporary and the rest are permanent workers. At the same time, of the 158,231 Filipino workers in Singapore, 56,000 are undocumented while 66,411 and 35,820 are temporary and permanent workers, respectively. Rich European capitals like France have the biggest number of undocumented migrant workers with 39,000 of the total 47,170; Italy is host to 117,090 Filipino workers, with 13,000 of them undocumented. Greece is host to 38,600 Filipino workers and 6,000 of them are undocumented, while 32,504 are temporary workers, mostly household-service workers. Spain has 50,680 Filipino workers and 4,055 of them are undocumented; Cyprus has more than 18,000 Filipino workers and 3,000 are undocumented. Lopsided equation Human trafficking as a critical global menace has indeed become profitable to underground businesses worldwide, similar to trafficking in money, drugs and guns. Former Labor undersecretary Susan Ople said traffickers earn P5,000 for each person sent to forced labor, sexual slavery and other forms of bondage. “If the trafficker is sending a girl who is still a virgin, the going rate could be as high as P26,000 per head.” Rich countries undeniably benefit from human trafficking as their industries and citizens take advantage of the vulnerability of the victims of migrant workers, either as source of cheap labor or poorly paid household-service workers. Likewise, sending more than 8 million Filipino workers abroad has become profitable to the Philippine economy because of their record-high remittances that reached nearly $18 billion in 2009. But a closer look at the Philippine social structure shows majority of families of Filipino migrant workers continue to languish in poverty, hopelessness and despair. OFW families remain poor The Episcopal Commission for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People, a panel of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, said in a study that at least 60 percent of the families of the 8 million OFWs remain poor. Fr. Edwin Corros, executive secretary of the Church-backed group, explained that majority of the migrant workers from the Philippines are classified as unskilled and semiskilled like the household-service workers who usually come home empty-handed. Like Trina, these hundreds of thousands of migrant workers abroad were promised a good-paying job but ended up in the hands of abusive employers. Worse, her dream of a better life for her family has been shattered, their future saddled by huge debts used in preparing for her deployment abroad, and as a result of the nonpayment of their salaries. The lingering poverty, as well as despair and lack of trust in the government, keeps pushing people in the countryside, especially conflict-stricken parts of Mindanao, to fall prey into the hands of human traffickers. Hunger and despair push people to desperate situations. The cases of Trina and Carla are magnified in at least 161 countries where human trafficking continues to thrive. Most of the victims are children and women. Rich economies continue to struggle to impose tough measures on undocumented immigrants to rid their governments of the heavy social and health burdens as well as security nightmares. However, these measures should not just be tough on the victims who end up jailed or deported. Instead, governments should strengthen efforts in combating the global menace by plugging the leaks in the systems. Human trafficking, experts said, will not thrive in a society that does not allow operations of brothels, sweat shops and factories that mostly hire minors and women. Also, the governments should implement stiffer rules for their nationals hiring foreign migrant workers in order to ensure that the latter receive fair salary and treatment. The Philippines has remained in the Tier 2 watchlist of the 2010 US report on Trafficking in Persons owing to the alleged weaknesses in the justice system that make it difficult to punish the perpetrators of this crime. The passage of the Trafficking in Persons Act of 2003 or Republic Act 9208 has led to the creation of the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking (IACAT)--composed of government agencies to implement preventive, protective and rehabilitative programs to address human trafficking. The Visayan Forum said that in 2009, there were 228 referred trafficking cases to the Department of Justice but only 206 of them are subject of current investigations. Philippine courts have over 380 pending or ongoing trafficking cases. So far, there were only 18 convictions since the passing of the antitrafficking law in 2003. But the number seems unfair, considering the hundreds of thousands of lives destroyed and their dreams shattered. The physical marks of the injuries of Trina and Carla may have healed over time. But there are unseen bruises that cut deeply into the soul of people traumatized by unimaginable abuses and these wounds can only be healed when justice is finally served.
In Photo: Foreign workers, Filipinos among them, wait to be cleared by immigration department officers of Rela (the Civilian Volunteer Police Force) after a surprise raid on illegal foreign workers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in this June 28, 2007, file photo. The Philippines is one of the world’s sources and transit places for human trafficking due to its heavy dependence on migrant workers, 8 million of them working abroad. (Bloomberg News)
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