MikeLigalig.com

ANTI-HUMAN TRAFFICKING BILL

Explanatory Note

Trafficking of persons has become one of the most lucrative criminal enterprises in the world, next to drug and gun smuggling. It is considered the third largest source of profits of organized crime. A recent study conducted by the International Organization on Migration revealed that human smugglers rake in about $8 billion a year. Annually, around 50,000 women are trafficked to the United States alone from the former Soviet Union States and East Asian countries. Many of the victims are Filipino women, the study showed. The victims often believe they will be entering a country to secure a decent job. Instead, they are virtual prisoners, with no resources, little recourse, and no protection against violations of their human rights. They are forced into prostitution, cheated of their wages and made to work under sub-human conditions. Many employers shrewdly use vicious schemes of abuse. In extreme cases, the victims return to the Philippines physically and emotionally brutalized, or they come home dead.

The members of the United Nations signed on November 15, 2000, the International Treaty on Transnational Organized Crime in a convention held in Palermo, Italy. The main feature of the treaty is to ensure punishment for persons responsible for the trafficking of persons especially women and children and of sneaking in migrants by land, sea and air, regardless of the place where they are committed.

Human trafficking is a major transnational crime. This crime is not yet defined and penalized by our laws. The problem needs to be addressed seriously since the crime involves transnational organized syndicates operating in almost every country that are either the destination of illegal migrants or used as transit point in smuggling people to other countries. The effects of human trafficking are condemnable and that concrete action must be immediately established.

This bill therefore, seeks to address human trafficking by penalizing the perpetrators and giving protection to the victims. The proposed measure provides for a broader scope than human smuggling. The definition of trafficking of persons does not merely deal on the absence of travel documents or irregularities of obtaining the same. It is focused on the purposes for which a person is smuggled such as prostitution, illegal adoption, servile marriage, involuntary servitude, forced or bonded labor, or slavery-like conditions. The proposed bill likewise provides for a greater penalty to those who put into mockery the rule of law, the protection of trafficked persons and their witnesses through witness protection program to counter the risk of reprisals from the offenders and medical and psychological services to ensure the well-being of the victims.

In view of the foregoing considerations, early passage of this measure is earnestly sought.

Linkback: https://tubagbohol.mikeligalig.com/index.php?topic=3053.0