Lilia was 26 years old when she left her family in Pangasinan for domestic work in Singapore. Though uncertain about what awaited her, she thought it was the only way to help her financially struggling parents who pawned their farm for a huge amount.
A part of the money was used to cover her plane fare and employment visa. In November 2016, Lilia and five other girls left but were asked to pay P2,600 more for airport tax and other expenses.
For three months in the hands of an abusive Singaporean couple, she did not receive the promised $340 monthly salary. She endured physical beatings and leftover meals, made worst when she was jailed after being forced to admit to stealing money.
Lilia is just one of the thousands of trafficked victims duped into supposed lucrative jobs abroad.
Persisting through the years, human trafficking is a serious global concern that involves the exploitation of people for different purposes. It may be forced labor, sexual exploitation, or domestic servitude.
Just recently, Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla said the organ trade is a form of human trafficking, ranked the third most lucrative criminal enterprise next to the illegal drug trade and arms smuggling.
Appallingly, there is non-stop reporting of cases in which family members sold children to employers for domestic labor or sexual exploitation, and there are reportedly hundreds of thousands of children involved in selling and begging on the streets at risk of trafficking.
Based on the “2022 Trafficking in Persons Report: Philippines,” the Department of Foreign Affairs reported 248 potential Filipino trafficking victims abroad, mostly in the Middle East and Asia, from July to December 2021.
This may have been lower by 10.2 percent compared to the 2,429 in the previous period but data from non-government organizations and another international group showed 985 sex trafficking victims (228 men, 742 women, 197 boys, and 545 girls) and six adult female labor trafficking victims during the reporting period.
Over the past years, human traffickers have been everywhere preying on potential victims here and abroad. They know no age, gender, race, or status in life.
“Human traffickers exploit women and children from rural communities, conflict-and disaster-affected areas, and impoverished urban centers in sex trafficking, forced domestic work, forced begging, and other forms of forced labor in tourist destinations and urban areas around the country, and traffickers exploit men in forced labor in the agricultural, construction, fishing, and maritime industries, sometimes through debt-based coercion,” the 2022 Trafficking in Persons Report: Philippines read.
The significant numbers are dreadful, particularly the approximately 50,000 Filipino children employed as domestic workers in the Philippines, including nearly 5,000 who are younger than 15, not to mention children in hazardous working conditions in mines, factories, and farms.
Maybe we could find solace in Remulla’s assurance that the Department of Justice, as a member of the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking, is determined to strictly implement departure protocols for international-bound travelers.
With the “Departure Formalities” — an integral part of a holistic campaign that involves prevention, protection, prosecution, partnership, and policy — all being well, there will be the interception of the real trafficking victims.
Human trafficking is inarguably a complex and multifaceted problem and it behooves all stakeholders to collaborate and coordinate so that no more Filipinos become modern-day slaves who have to live through shattered dreams.