Trafficking the Enslaved

It was for Jennifer, an all too familiar story similar to that of thousands in Asia and Eastern Europe. Born into poverty, living in a poor village on Negros Island in the Philippines and dreaming of better life, Jennifer went with a recruiter and her parent’s approval to work as a domestic helper in the capital Manila. But soon her naive dreams of earning a modest wage for 12 hours a day to help her five brothers and sisters were shattered when her employer and his sons abused and raped her. She was their sexual slave for weeks and they took her out to parties with their friends and they too took turns abusing her.

She cried all the next day but was ignored. Like most trafficked persons, she was a virtual slave, unpaid, abused, guarded and forced to work. Jennifer only escaped by complaining of a toothache and ran out of the dentist’s office when her guard went to the bathroom.

But it didn't end there for she was ashamed to go home and believed what her master said, that she was “good for nothing”. Soon, hungry and alone, she was easily lured into one of the thousands of sex bars in Metro Manila which officials seem to encourage and promote and frequent themselves.

The dirty business has spread to the distant countryside and beach resorts and is entrenched in the sex cities where it is a big business. When Preda social workers went to the distant tourist town of Alaminos on a tip off, three young girls 13 and 15 year-olds were rescued with much difficulty while local police did more to obstruct than to help.

Trafficking and exploitation of young people for sex slavery is rampant throughout the world so bad that the US State Department has an annual status report to the US Congress that gives grades to the countries that rank from the good to the bad. To be on the special watch list is bad and that’s where the Philippines is once again.

If it remains there for another year without improving its record in catching the traffickers and convicting them, there will be serious sanctions that only the President of the United States can waiver.

The demand for trafficked children and women is increasing and rewards for the traffickers and brothel operators, pimps and their political backers are huge. Some government officials are part of the business giving operating permits and business licenses to the sex bars. Here, the trafficked children and women are incarcerated for the gratification of local and foreign sex tourists that come flocking in to abuse and rape them with impunity. Then the foreigners return to their home county looking for victims there.

Tourist sending countries must realize that trafficking is a global trade and their citizens are part of the problem. They create demand and pay big money for children. A Doctor Surgeon in Ireland indicted for serial child sexual abuse was a regular visitor to a children’s charity in India where he sponsored several children and went to visit them regularly. A Dutch national set up a sex hotel in Olongapo City and sexually assaulted, abducted and raped the daughter of the manager. He then escaped prosecution with the connivance of the prosecutor. Josef Fritz was a frequent sex tourist in Thailand and returned to Austria to abuse his daughter imprisoned in the basement with whom he fathered several children.

In the Philippines we see few convictions of any high profile traffickers or sex tourists. Many can buy their way out. Some corrupt politicians that allow such dens of perversion gladly accept reelection money from the sex traffickers and their keepers.

What we need is the courage, faith and conviction to educate and build the awareness of the public with the truth about this sex slavery and trafficking. This will eventually ignite moral outrage and a demand for morally upright leaders capable of ending this evil and the corruption that allows it to thrive. All of us must take a stand and open the eyes and heart of the world to help the victims and end the abuse.