New Act Protects Women, Minors from Human Trafficking

A new Act gives more teeth to existing laws against the trafficking of women and minors. It also puts an end to the institutionalized gender bias of identifying the prostitute as only a “woman,” leaving promoters, coddlers and customers of white slavery scot-free.

by Dennis Espada 
Bulatlat.com

A 10-second public advocacy message broadcast recently on a local cable T.V. channel reveals a naked young woman, presumably beaten and abused, whose arms and legs are tied together with a nylon cord. Her body lies in a moving delivery machine along with other packages waiting to be picked up by airport passengers.

Seconds later, another scene shows a text that reads, "Stop sex trafficking of women." 

That is exactly the point. In oppressive societies, women and children are packaged as commodities that are stamped, sold and delivered in any place for the insatiable demands of pornography, and a growing yet discreet prostitution industry.

The TV ad is sponsored by Gabriela, a militant women's alliance, which has been campaigning against sexual trafficking of women and minors for two decades.  

Under R.A. 9208, trafficking in persons refers to the recruitment,  transportation, transfer or harboring, or receipt of persons, within or across national borders, by threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, for the purpose of exploitation.

Exploitation may take the form of prostitution, forced labor or services, slavery, servitude or the removal or sale of organs.

The law punishes offenders with a prison term ranging from 15 years to life aside from being fined with P500,000 to P2 million - depending on the severity of their case.

If the offender is a corporation, association, establishment or any person, the penalty shall be imposed upon the owner, president, partner, manager or any responsible officer who participated in the commission of the crime while their permit to operate will be revoked permanently, the law says.

Any foreigner found violating the law will be immediately deported after serving a sentence and may be permanently barred from entering the country.

The law also covers sexual services catered by military personnel engaged in rest and recreational activities.

An innovation of the law is that it explicitly uses the term "person." This effectively removes the gender bias of existing laws (such as the Revised Penal Code) covering prostitution, where it defines a prostitute as only "women who habitually engage" in sex or lascivious act "for money or profit." 

The law also creates an Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking to be composed of representatives from the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), National Commission on the Role of Filipino Women (NCRFW), Philippine National Police (PNP), Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) and non-government organizations. The council will be headed by the justice secretary with the secretary of social welfare as co-chair.

Proponents and supporters

The act was authored in the Senate by Sens. Loi Ejercito Estrada, Tessie Aquino-Oreta, John Osmeña, Rodolfo Biazon and Aquilino Pimentel.

Aside from Maza, the bill was sponsored in the House by Speaker Jose De Venecia Jr., Reps. Bellaflor Angara-Castillo, Uliran Joaquin, Krisel Lagman-Luistro, Darlene Antonino-Custodia, Eric Singson, Nerissa Soon-Ruiz, Crispin Beltran and Satur Ocampo.

Maza’s colleague in Gabriela, deputy secretary general Emmi de Jesus, described the act as timely. "Taking advantage of the dire situation of majority of Filipinos, unscrupulous individuals and agencies are victimizing for sex trade thousands of women and minors everyday,” she said. “Yet these individuals preying on women and minors go unpunished because, to start with, there is no law to punish them.”

De Jesus warned, however, that the law is neither a guarantee nor an end-all resolution to the problem of trafficking of women and minors. There should be no complacency in militant struggles on the issue because the problem of sex trafficking, being a product of perennial poverty and unequal opportunities in labor, is also an outcome of a "patriarchal" mindset that looks down on women as mere commodities, she said. Bulatlat.com

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