Human Trafficking in The Philippines - Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs)

Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs)

The Philippine government continues to rely heavily on NGOs and international organizations to provide services to victims. The Department of Social Welfare and Development operated 42 temporary shelters for victims throughout the country. Thirteen of these shelters were supported by a non-profit charity organization. Philippines law permits private prosecutors to prosecute cases under the direction and control of a public prosecutor. The government has used this provision effectively, allowing and supporting an NGO to file 23 casesin 2007.

The Philippine campaign against Child Trafficking—or PACT, is an anti-child trafficking campaign that was launched by ECPAT Philippines to raise awareness on the Child Trafficking phenomena in the country. The campaign also aims to encourage local mechanisms for the prevention and protection of children against Child Trafficking as well as other programs which are unified with the intensification of the human rights of children such as the holistic recovery and reintegration of child victims of trafficking.

Stairway Foundation, a child protection NGO, came up in 2009 with its 3rd animation film called "Red Leaves Falling" which is about child sex trafficking and pornography under the Break the Silence Campaign. The said film is being used by numerous government and non-government organizations to raise awareness on the issue of trafficking.

In 2010, the Office of the Ombudsman signed a memorandum of agreement with select cause-oriented groups (the Visayan Forum, Ateneo Human Rights Center or AHRC, and the International Justice Mission or IJM) so that they could help in the collective fight against human trafficking.

The Visayan Forum Foundation Inc. (VFF), has rescued and helped more than 32,000 victims and potential victims of trafficking since it was established in 1991. The Visayan Forum work with the Philippine coast guard, the government's Port Authority, and shipping company, Aboitez, to keep monitor arriving boats in the main ports, looking for possible traffickers traveling with groups of children. The organization has operations in four main ports serving Manila, and says it rescues between 20 and 60 children a week.

However, foreign sex traffickers and child molesters often harass Catholic and other groups by lodging multiple libel and other suits.

In 1999 the PREDA Foundation, through the International League of Action, was able to bring to justice a group of Norwegians who were trafficking children from one town in the Philippines and bringing them to Oslo for sexual abuse. The youngest of these children were six and seven years old.