Human Trafficking in [Philippines] [other countries]Street Children in [Philippines] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Philippines |
Child Prostitution The Commercial Sexual Exploitation of
Children Republic of the Philippines [ Country-by-Country
Reports ] The Republic of the |
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Dept of Labor Bureau of International Labor Affairs INCIDENCE
AND NATURE OF CHILD LABOR - Children living on the streets engage in informal labor activities
such as scavenging or begging. Children are also engaged in domestic
service and are involved in the commercial sex industry, including the use of
children in the production of pornography and the exploitation of children by
sex tourists. Children are reportedly
trafficked internally for purposes of commercial sexual exploitation and
labor. Bur of Democracy,
Human Rights & Labor - Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2005 TRAFFICKING
IN PERSONS – The
Virlanie Foundation, a local child protection NGO, estimated that there were
at least 20 thousand child prostitutes in the country, most in the Metro
Manila area. Other NGOs estimated that as many as 100 thousand children were
involved in the commercial sex industry. Most of these children were girls,
and nearly all had dropped out of school. These children come from very poor
families with unemployed or irregularly employed parents. The Virlanie Foundation offered
housing, training, and counseling services to child prostitutes. An ILO
program resulted in more than six thousand children being removed or
prevented from engaging in the worst forms of child labor, including the
commercial sex industry Concluding
Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) - 2005 [84] The Committee expresses its
grave concern about the sexual exploitation of children, including growing
child prostitution, and the reported cases of child pornography in the State
party. The Committee notes with concern that the provisions of the Special
Protection of Children against Child Abuse, Exploitation and Discrimination
Act (Republic Act No. 7610) are mainly related to child prostitution and do
not adequately protect victims of other forms of sexual exploitation.
Furthermore, the Committee notes with concern that the minimum age of sexual
consent is not clearly enough established in the State party’s domestic
legislation and that the Revised Penal Code (Republic Act No. 3815) imposes
maximum penalties for sexual offences when the victim is under 12 years of
age but imposes lower penalties for sexual offenses against minors over 12
years of age. [85] The Committee welcomes the
adoption of, in 2003, the new Anti-Trafficking Law (Republic Act 9208) and
other measures taken by the State party in the areas of prevention of
trafficking and protection of victims, such as the establishment of
Anti-Illegal Recruitment Coordination Councils, the Trade Union Child Labor
Advocate (TUCLAS) initiative and the establishment
of an Executive Council to suppress trafficking in person particularly women
and children. But the Committee is gravely concerned about trafficked
Filipino children both within the country and across borders. The Committee
expresses its concern about existing risk factors contributing to trafficking
activities, such as persisting poverty, temporary overseas migration, growing
sex tourism and weak law enforcement in the State party. Fr.
Shay Cullen » A Brave and Loving Woman Josie Magano
is one of the bravest Filipino women I ever met. One day she came asking help
to rescue her teenage daughter from the clutches of a Danish sex tour
operator who owned a hotel in Baloy Beach in Olongapo City. Halfway
houses at ports protect sex trade victims A female recruiter, who promised
Ana a job as a storekeeper in Cavite, flew her from
her home province of Bukidnon to Manila in January
2006. From there, she was brought to Cavite and
forced to work as a guest relations officer (GRO)
in a bar and, eventually, as a prostitute.
With three other girls—all minors—Ana was made to work from 4 p.m.
till past midnight. If the girls refused to cooperate, “Steve,” a nephew of
the bar owner, would beat them or douse them with water. - htcp Ghana: Rescuing the Child Prostitute, Whose Responsibility? allafrica.com/stories/200711051563.html RESEARCH FINDINGS - In the Philippines, UNICEF
estimated that there are 60,000 child prostitutes and many of the 200
brothels in the notorious Angeles City offer children for sex. Cops
told to probe alleged child prostitution in Digos city Last week, a nine-year old student
at a public school here went missing for three days. When the girl resurfaced, she said she was
recruited into prostitution by a gang operating at the Rizal
Park, a stone's throw from the city hall and the police station. The tape showed hundreds of
children as young as 5 locked in cages stacked a half-dozen high. Most were
child prostitutes, caught in that country's rampant sex tourism trade. Broadcast on CNN, it highlighted an issue
the world couldn't ignore, and hit hardest in North America, where many of
the children's regular customers live. More than 60,000 Filipino girls
work as child prostitutes. They are recruited by pimps in rural areas of the
country from unsuspecting, desperately poor families who send their daughters
to the city to earn extra money.
"It's everyone from the sleazy to the elite," Father Shay
says of the tourists who frequent child brothels. "All levels of society
and every nationality." Girls are
sold in the brothels and on the streets for as little as $25 and can see as
many as 10 customers a day. If they don't make enough money, they are beaten. Fighting
The Child Sex Trade - One priest's battle to protect exploited kids Pia Agustin Corvera
became a prostitute at the age of 9. An aunt who raised her in a Manila slum
rented her to foreign men with Pia receiving 120
pesos–$3–for each encounter. After three years, according to a social
worker's report, she was sold to a visiting German pedophile. Today, the
morose 16-year-old with a ravaged psyche and an uneasy smile has found refuge
here in a therapeutic community for child victims of sexual abuse run by a
57-year-old Irish priest, the Rev. Shay Cullen. The tiny Filipino girl is
slowly learning to trust again, and while understandably shy, she describes
with brutal simplicity the sum of her experiences. Says Pia:
"I felt like garbage." A Filipino
girl, at the tender age of three, was forced to perform oral sex
on strangers. What's worse is that her pimp is her own mother, a drug
addict. The girl's plight is shocking
but not unique, said Dr Jean D'Cunha from the
United Nations Development Fund for Women (Unifem). Children of increasingly young ages are
being forced into prostitution to fuel the billion-dollar tourism trade in
child sex, said international experts on prostitution and human trafficking
at a conference here. Add the growing
number of similarly victimised young women, and the
experts believe that 'millions are being trafficked worldwide for the sex
trade. The path to recovery
of Isabel and Irene www.abs-cbnnews.com/storypage.aspx?StoryId=51822 The flight schedule
was pinned up on the wall. The pimps arrived and began to argue with the
police claiming that they had an understanding with the police chief. But the
police we had with us were from a different station. While they were busy
discussing the payoff, the Preda team went into the
house with the mother and found Isabel. They got her out into the van and
sped away before anyone could stop them. It was clear that there would be no
investigation and no arrests. If only we could have rescued all the girls it
would have been a great day’s work but unfortunately it was impossible. The
girls were teenagers and one of then had a baby. Two
men convicted of sex tourism ordered to pay victims in RP A man convicted of traveling to
the Sex
tourism is big money for pimps and politicians To be left homeless and abandoned
at 13 years old with a younger brother to provide for was too much for
Angelina. Hungry and hopeless, begging food in a public park and nowhere to
go, she found hope and happiness in the offer of two women job recruiters. Wising
Up On Sexual Trafficking Of Women And Children [DOC] [scroll down]
Cebu is considered as one of the top five
areas for child prostitution and sex tourism. The prevalence of human trafficking According to him, Cebu is among the top five areas in the country where
child prostitution and sex tourism are prevalent because it is the
destination of international and domestic trafficking of kids ages 11 to 17
from nearby provinces of Samar, Leyte,
Bohol, and The End Child Prostitution, Child
Pornography and the Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes said that the
number of commercially and sexually exploited children in the country is
increasing. The Philippine Plan of Action estimated that there are between
60,000 to 75,000 children in the Child prostitution in Cebu alarming — ILO Most of these children aged 11 to
17 are classified as “freelancers,” or doing their trade while they roam the
city streets. The study may not be extensive as it should have been, but the
ILO-IPECL said this should be enough to be alarmed
and to do something about child prostitution. ECPAT: Fifth Report on implementation of the Agenda for
Action [DOC] www.ecpat.net/eng/Ecpat_inter/publication/other/english/Doc_page/ecpat_5th_a4a_2001_full.doc [B] COUNTRY
UPDATES – PHILIPPINES–
The Philippines officially adopted its National Plan of Action titled the
Framework for Action against the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children
2000-2005 in November 2000. The Philippine Government also produced a long-term
“Philippine Plan of Action for Children (PPAC): the
Filipino Children 2000 and Beyond” where commercial sexual exploitation is
recognized as an area where priority attention and action are required. Report
by Special Rapporteur [DOC] [61] Awareness about sexual
exploitation of children is high and the Government has introduced a series
of policy and legislative measures since the early 1990s to address the
issues. The legislative framework to protect children is
comprehensive and certain acts have been revised with the protection of
children in mind. In particular, the Anti-Trafficking in Children
Act is currently in its fifth draft and includes provisions such as the
protection of the trafficked child from criminal liability, appropriate
training for persons who work with child victims/survivors and the
penalization of those facilitating the trafficking. However, certain realities remain to be
addressed, including that children can still find themselves imprisoned
following their “rescue” from brothels and other exploitative environments,
and prosecutions against often-wealthy exploiters continue to fail through
inadequate legal procedures. CHILD
PROSTITUTION IS A KIN OF CHILD PORNOGRAPHY - The Cultural Perspective On Child Prostitution In The Far East In the Philippines, the practice
of selling children into prostitution is a long and well-established trade.
While there are laws forbidding the practice, there are no enforcement
measures to prevent the tragedy. Part of this pathology comes from the
ideology that children are not people, but property. Family And Friends
Push Children Into Prostitution Recruiters often justify getting children
into the sex
trade by saying that they are “helping” them and their families. Recruiters can be immediate family members
or people known to family and friends.
The fight against child prostitution is hampered by the victims' reluctance
to testify and the inexperience of prosecutors. Philippines-Children: Scourge Of
Child Prostitution Sharon,
a 13 years-old schoolgirl was forever cutting classes at her village school and, fearful
of her parents wrath, took a bus from her village and headed for the big city
- Manila. She wound up in Free Trade
and Child Prostitution in the Philippines Jemma was only a child. 14 years old .
when I first saw her she was dressed in a bikini , had a name tag attached
and was gyrating on the stage in a sleazy bar, in Angeles City, a hundred
kilometers north of Manila ,Philippines. The
Modern Scourge of Sex Slavery [3rd photo caption] Filipino children, victims of child prostitution, wait to
testify before Philippine Congressional committee on child prostitution and
human rights, as 200 street children rallied, in a downpour outside, in
support. Virlanie Foundation www.virlanie.org/article_lft.php3?id_rubrique=84&lang=en ABOUT VFI
- HISTORY 1998 - Establishment of Ma Maison for children aged 14 years and above who have
suffered abuse, child prostitutes or victims of physical maltreatment. Street
Children in the Philippines Besides street children, there is
child prostitution in International
Center on Child Labor and Education (ICCLE) CHILD
LABOR RAMPANT IN CEBU, DOLE SAYS - Although DOLE did not give
figures on how many children are working in Cebu,
it is considered as among the “hot spots” for child prostitution where a
number of kids are found working in pyrotechnics, prostitution, domestic
labor, mining and quarrying, deep-sea fishing, and sugar cane plantations. THE SCOPE AND NATURE OF THE PROBLEM
IN THE EAP REGION - Most sexual exploitation of children is by local
men. In the Philippines, for example, it is thought that nine out of ten
customers of child prostitutes are Filipinos. All material used herein
reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC §
107 for noncommercial, nonprofit, and educational use |
Human Trafficking in [Philippines] [other countries]Street Children in [Philippines] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Philippines