Rise up, Philippines!
She has seen it happen, she said.
When a disaster strikes, young girls who come from good families—sheltered, vulnerable—would become orphans. Depraved men—and women—from the underworld, otherwise known as human traffickers, would circle them like vultures. In their fragile state, with no one to look after them, no one who knew who they were or where they came from, they would fall prey to that life.
The Philippines has just experienced a disaster and no one knows who is looking after the orphaned children.
An unlikely place
I was in a hall of glittering pearls and gold—a respite from the soul-jarring reality of Typhoon Yolanda and the frustrating effort to help from a distance—and I did not expect to hear of it again, albeit for a few hours.
And what the keynote speaker, the Honourable Senator Mobina Jaffer, told us that night, we knew nothing of despite the maelstrom of information and flurry over Yolanda. It was one reality we were not prepared for, but it was a reality the senator thought we could do something to change.
“It [human trafficking] is a worldwide problem and therefore all governments need to be involved. That is why I believe I need to be involved as a law maker from Canada. I need to do my share in raising awareness of trafficking of children and being a force in changing Canadian laws so that we can help those abroad,” says Senator Jaffer.
Immediately, the air dripped heavy with concern because of the problem we had to face.
According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef ) an estimated 60,000 to 100,000 children in the Philippines, between the ages of 15 and 20 (some as young as 11), are involved in prostitution rings, particularly in tourist areas. Authorities have also identified an increase in child molesters travelling to the Philippines. In fact, in a recent online sting operation run by a group campaigning against child sex exploitation used a computer-generated 10-year-old Filipino girl they named “Sweetie,” and through her caught thousands of pedophiles.
While the Philippines is the fourth country with the most number of prostituted children, India also ranked high with 200,000 to over 250,000 women and girls, mostly Nepalese and some barely 9–10 years, who were already in Indian brothels in 1989. Senator Jaffer relayed her experience when she worked with the International Justice Mission Canada in Kolkata, India, and met face-to-face with a group of trafficked teenagers.
“When I met with the girls, it was as if I was meeting with young girls anywhere in the world. We all sat down on the floor in a circle and they would ask me questions and I in turn would ask them questions. Their questions were like questions my own daughter has asked me… about clothes, food, Bollywood movies and popular songs. I nearly forgot what these girls had been through, what they had experienced.
“The reality of these girls though, is that they have been brutalized by traffickers. In many cases, they have been snatched from their family and village, and forcibly placed in a brothel. At the brothel, their spirits were broken by terrible beatings and brutal rapes, often by the Trafficker himself, and then forcibly having to submit to 12 to 20 rapes a day.
“I have for over twenty years worked on issues of trafficking… yet these girls’ experiences shocked me like I was learning about it for the first time. Observing their young faces, all I wanted to say was that I was sorry that I did not do more to protect you… but I did not say it, because I did not want the happy banter between us to disappear.
“I think one of the ways to say sorry to these girls and help them to rehabilitate is to make sure that the traffickers are held accountable for their actions, as there are many roadblocks in their way to obtaining justice.
“We could stop the children from being trafficked, and yet we have done nothing. As a group, we need the will to take action.”
Open letter
Senator Jaffer, who also recently chaired a Senate study on the Sexual Exploitation of Children in Canada and the Need for National Action, suggested that we write a letter to Minister of Foreign Affairs John Baird so that Canada will send more troops to keep Filipino children safe.
Let this be that letter.
Society owes its children no less than vigilance and protection. Those children—someone loved them once, thought they were precious, held their hands in the most tender of ways. They must be protected.
A trafficked child means losing a family, a community, a society. It is a crime against humanity.
And the victims of Yolanda in the Philippines, the children, the orphans, they have already lost so much. Let us not allow anyone to take them farther into the night.