Police’s arrest Friday night in a Cebu City mall of Stephanie Reyes, suspected of trafficking women and girls for sex showed that players in the criminal commodification of people have become so daring as to transact their sleazy ventures publicly.
Sectors battling human trafficking need to intensify their campaign and teach the public, mall personnel especially, how to detect trafficking.
Banners that acquaint the public with the tell-tale signs of human trafficking need to be displayed more prominently in busy areas like malls which predators favor because everyone there minds their own business.
If more of us had eyes trained to spot victims, and possessed highly-developed consciences that prompt us to report to the agency concerned people like Reynes herding girls into a bar, anti-trafficking authorities might net more flesh traders.
On its website, the Polaris Project, a US-based group fighting human trafficking worldwide states the characteristics of a person who is being trafficked:
1.) is fearful, anxious, depressed, submissive, tense, or nervous/paranoid
2.) exhibits unusually fearful or anxious behavior after bringing up law enforcement
3.) avoids eye contact
4.) lacks health care
5.) appears malnourished and
6.) shows signs of physical and/or sexual abuse, physical restraint, confinement, or torture.
Operatives of the Central Visayas Anti-Human Trafficking Task Force had to set up a ruse to stop Reynes’ sale of 11 victims, four of them minors.
The task force cannot rest while our children are unsafe. Members must now be deployed in bustling places, too.
They need to publicize contact numbers that people can use to report cases.
It is hard to find a number online.
A Web search on how to report human trafficking in the Visayas yields lots of images that do not help us spot and report trafficking.
Outside the radar, more Stephanies prowl about, seeking women and girls to sell. Who would not be repulsed?
How can one fathom that Stephanie, a mother and a woman, failed to empathize with the dilemma faced by the ladies and daughters of other mothers whom she pimped?
While moral vanguards do what they can to educate us about human dignity, we must help authorities bring to justice those who earn by enslaving and prostituting people.
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