RSS
Twitter
The event was organized by Called to Rescue supporters Stephanie Henares, communications agency ComCo Southeast Asia and Boutique Burger Kitchen (BBK), a family-oriented diner from Chef Carlo Miguel of Draft Gastropub.
What is Called to Rescue?
Called to Rescue is an international non-profit organization founded in 1988 by Dr. Cyndi Romine, who is one of the leading authorities in the fight against children injustices.
Called to Rescue combats child trafficking in three ways:
- prevention through education and training of youth of all ages and their parents
- dedication to the child until he/she has experienced healing
- continuation in every aspect of child trafficking awareness.
(NGO) in 2009, with Mr. Anthony Pangilinan as its Officer-in- Charge.
What is Human Trafficking?
Actually, the definition of human trafficking varies depending on which law so it makes it difficult for the layman to understand.
Human trafficking is the buying and selling of men, women and children within countries and across borders in order to exploit them for money. Human trafficking is a large-scale profit scheme which involves syndicates. It is overtaking arm smuggling and drug trafficking because kids can be used more than 20 times per day.
It is very broad covering many illegal activities such as:
- Forced labor
- Debt bondage
- Trafficking for sexual orientation
- Child labor
- Forced begging
- Trafficking for organ removal
- Forced marriage (mail order bride)
- Trafficking in domestic work
- Child soldiers
- Rape or Date Rape
- Lack of awareness
- Did you know that there are more than 500,000 cases of human trafficking in the Philippines last 2016 alone? And, there are over 30 billion cases worldwide. I was really surprised by this because most human rights cases in the Philippines focused more on Extra-judicial killings, disappearances and torture and it didn't occur to me even during my human rights violation research as a law student that there is such an issue. And, this lack of awareness over the issue is what I think is the main factor why it became such a big problem.
- It's not as uncommon as we think. There was even a case where the perpetrator who sold young teens in BGC is a wealthy Filipino-Chinese residing in Corinthian Village who had two rooms just for girls. And, Tindr was used as a means to lure girls in.
- Poverty
- Philippine as an archipelago
- Friendly culture
- Lack of parental oversight
- Lack of implementation of laws
- Corruption
- Weak judicial system
- Court congestion
- Shortage of prosecutors
- Although laws are continuously being developed:
- ASEAN Convention Against Trafficking in Persons (ratified February 2017)
- RA 7610 as amended on 2003 (Special Protection of Children against Abuse, Exploitation and Discrimination Act)
- RA 9208 (Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2003)
- RA 6955 (Mail-order brides)
- RA 8042 (Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos Act)
- Revised Penal Code
- Art. 202 (prostitution)
- Art. 341
- PD 442: Labor Code of Philippines
- Philippines Constitution
So previously I said I was Called to Rescue. What do I mean by that? How can a private person like me take part in such a big issue? Well, we can do A LOT actually.
- Parents should oversee their child (Parents better to struggle than worry so don't give up! Although before 9 out of 10 Filipino kids look up to their parents, now only 4 out of 10 do.)
- Don't give your kids gadgets; Lend them gadgets so you have degree of control
- Teach kids to say No
- Learn self-defense such as shouting and learning Krav Maga
- Share the awareness
- Join the community by liking Called to Rescue in Facebook
- Report trafficking, abuse, and cases of missing children with the Called to Rescue’s local hotline at (0917) 541- 0287, through their facebook fan page or website calledtorescue.com.ph.