Sex+Trafficking+in+The+Philippines

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The US Department of State defines Sex trafficking as the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act. This is a very serious issue in Europe, Asia and Latin America. The following statistics will astonish you. In 2006, 775 victims of sexual slavery were found by the German Federal Police Office. An astounding average of 13,500 sex-trafficking victims can be found in Greece at any given time according to NGO estimates. More specifically, sex-trafficking has become a very serious problem in Thailand and the Philippines.======

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Filipina women are largely trafficked into Japan, where the government actually supports sex organizations in the Philippines. An average of 150,000 women alone have been sold into the sex industry. Back in 1991 they were being trafficked to Japan for thousands of dollars a piece like a highly needed resource. The trafficking laws are present in Japan, but not enforced at all because these young women coming to Japan on “entertainment visas” are perfect for the prostitution that goes on there. The Filipino government actually supports the export of these women.======

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It is sad and disgusting how the children in the Philippines are used in the sex-industry. Around 500 cases were reported in 1996, all involving child abuse with pornography, and sex-trafficking with over 8,000 cases between 1991 and 1996. In just one Filipino country one can find over 1,000 underage teenage girls that were forced into the sex industry. The pedophile men that “buy” these girls pay as low as fifty cents, and the price only rises to about $2.50. The Philippines has actually made a name for itself as a “hot spot” for a pedophile vacation, mostly from the United States and Europe. These poor children are scarred for life after their traumatic experiences in sex-trafficking. Even children that are rescued from this way of life and are put into rehabilitation find it very difficult to get passed. Not only does this cause emotional distress on these young girls, but also can cause serious physical problems. As one could guess, sexually transmitted diseases are a very critical issue because of all the unprotected sex. The cost of contraceptives in the Philippines has gone up, so the spread of these dangerous STD’s such as AIDS and Gonorrhea are climbing higher and higher. There are tours set up, like the “Philippine Adventure Tour”, which includes the airfare, hotel costs and a tour-guide to show good places to go to find prostitutes. These sex-tours comes with garuntees that one will “never sleep alone on this tour”. Tours like this are a major reason why child prostitution persists in the Philippines, because knowingly or not, the men on these tours typically end up buying young girls. There is also a tourism program in place, set up by the government of the Philippines, which in turn creates an increase in the number of prostitutes. Because more area’s in the country tries to push for tourism, more women are forced into prostitution to support their families.======

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The United States has long been a problem in the sex slavery going on in the Philippines. The United States military was a big reason prostitution is so large in the Philippines, especially since the Vietnam War. All of the American men using these Filipina women and children has left thousands of amer-asian children as a result, without fathers. And as the number of ports open in the Philippines to the United States military, the number of prostitution involved in only predicted to go higher. Because of their unusual looks, compared to full Filipino children, they are more likely to be targeted in sex trafficking.======

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The Filipino government is putting some things in place, though, to try and resolve the problem. The government has assigned a special task force to investigate sex trafficking and prostitution. Since most of the accused in the child and women abuse cases are from Great Britain and Australia, the Philippines signed an anti-pedophilia cooperation agreement with both countries in 1997. Since then, Great Britain has been cooperating with the Philippines to try and stop the child sex-slavery. British police officers actually trained Filipino police officers with some special training dealing with victims of abuse, especially with women and children. In this training they learned the most up to date ways of investigating these special kinds of cases and how to personally interact with the victims.======

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Although the Filipino government has put things in place to try and resolve sex trafficking and prostitution, within the government is where some of the true problems lie. Corrupt police officers and government officials have been caught and charged with sexually assaulting and exploiting women and children. Even one of their congressmen, Romeo Jalosjos, was charged with raping a young girl, and a representative, Manolet Lavides, was connected to the prostitution of four high school students. As shocking as it sounds, the Mayor of Angeles City, Edgardo Pamintuan, was directly involved with the prostitution of a 16 year old girl that was working as a model. Numerous amounts of police officers have been accused of raping girls as young as 11 years old.======

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(16) (Child rights activists, Dr. Norietta Calma of the Philippine General Hospital’s Child Protection Unit, Sol. F. Juvida, "Philippines - Children: Scourge of Child Prostitution," IPS, 12 October 1997)======