The Philippines-- a destination for men, women, and children who are subjected to sex trafficking and forced labor.

In the Philippines, traffickers, in partnership with organized crime syndicates and complicit law enforcement officers, regularly operate through fraudulent recruitment agencies and practices to traffic migrants. Traffickers use local recruiters sent to urban neighborhoods to recruit family and friends.  These fraudulent recruitment practices  paying recruitment fees often leave workers vulnerable to forced labor, debt bondage, and commercial sexual exploitation (www.moderndayslavesmovie.com). The illicit recruiters increased their use of student, intern, and exchange program visas to circumvent the Philippines government and receiving countries’ regulatory frameworks for foreign workers.

Causes:  Poverty, population growth, dependency or mendicancy  lead some parents to see child labor as a means to cope with meager family incomes.

What is the relationship of Human trafficking and Remittances ?

The Philippine government, a third world country actively encourages citizens to leave their country as foreign workers. Why ? OFW's repatriated nearly $18B back to the Philippines in 2008. This helps the economy affloats and creates a huge opportunity for corruption among its politicians and legislators.

"Job creation in the Philippines is one of the many solutions the government must do" says Gary Martinez of Migrante International.  I agree, one of the many solutions.

GABRIELA, the National Alliance of Women's Organizations, is actively involved in massive awareness campaigns to prevent the trafficking of women and girls from the Philippines. They are trying so hard but need more support from NGO's and private funds to continue this advocacy.

Is there hope to end human trafficking ? maybe not in our lifetime----we at MDSFoundation would like to save one life every time we screened our film for free.

Check our webpage to learn more : http://www.imdsf.com/mdsf/ .  It is happening in our backyard.