Cebu a ‘trafficking hotspot’
DUE to its status as a center for shipping and tourism in Central Visayas and the rest of the southern Philippines, Cebu remains vulnerable to foreign sex predators, an international non-government organization (NGO) said yesterday.
Dr. Alwin De Leon, country manager for Terre Des Hommes, said the series of raids and the number of rescued victims showed that Cebu is a target for human trafficking.
“The local government units (LGUs), provincial government and the community have been so open and cooperative with this issue compared to other provinces in the country,” de Leon said.
In April 2013, the NGO’s Netherlands office created a 10-year old virtual Filipina girl named “Sweetie” that joined a public chat room and drew 1,000 foreigners in a week.
Most of them came from Europe, Australia and the US.
Tourists
“We sent the data to the Interpol for investigation. There are 700,000 websites that are allegedly involved in this,” de Leon said.
Of the 1,000 who chatted “Sweetie” an Australian was arrested by authorities.
De Leon said their study entitled “Full Screen On View” showed that Cebu draws two million foreign and three million local tourists in Cebu from 2008 to 2010.
“The more tourists are coming in then the possibility of exploitation reports is there,” de Leon said.
He said most of the victims are minors whose families cannot afford to buy them food or send them to school.
Hotspot
De Leon said there are 7,617 children aged five years old that are sexually exploited.
“That is why we are also conducting orientations at hotels, motels, resorts and other establishments to teach them how to report and identify this kind of problem,” he said.
He said parents and the community should also be instilled with values that would encourage them to be vigilant in reporting sex predators to the authorities.
De Leon said they conducted trainings on capability building in Mandaue City, Lapu Lapu City and Cordova town and will schedule another activity in Bogo City.
Cebu Vice Gov. Agnes Magpale said Cebu may have been named as one of six hotspots for trafficking in the country due to the number of publicized cases in the past few years.
“More or less, the number of cases are the same in other destinations. Trafficking is everywhere,” she said.
She said what makes Cebu province different is that the government and other NGOs have been actively waging war against trafficking.
“We are trying our best to send a message to perpetrators out there,” she said.
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