Public perceptions of women trafficking

Recently, Pulse Asia and the Asia Foundation collaborated in an attempt to generate baseline Filipino public opinion data on the issue of women trafficking. The national sense of the phenomenon – the public’s level of awareness for it and their sentiments and attitudes in relation to one of the most heinous crimes imaginable – had been missing in the existing studies of women trafficked into commercial sex, oppressively cheap labor or outright slavery among other forms of human brutalization.

Specialists who had probed into the exploitation of women as part of human trafficking often confined themselves to documenting the case histories of those who had been victimized. From their case studies, these specialists constructed sociological profiles that helped identify who were at risk and what their vulnerabilities were likely to be. Other people focused on unraveling the network of institutions fashioned by those who trafficked people to facilitate their pernicious trade. There were also others who tried to address the victims’ urgent need for material and psychological assistance. A few others focused on improving the laws and actively lobbied for a law where existing statutes appeared disastrously ambiguous or lacked appropriate sanctions.

All these efforts helped in the crusade to unmask and curb women trafficking in the country and beyond. Still, until a Pulse Asia national survey in November 2002 allowed their collective voice to be recorded – thanks to funds made available for this purpose by the Asia Foundation – the general public had not been heard at all on this issue.

The survey findings validated many of the views expressed by those who had studied the trafficking of women extensively. Public awareness for women trafficking turns out to be quite high, with six out of ten respondents being awareness of it. TV and radio are their main source of information regarding women trafficking. Four out of five respondents associate trafficking with illegal recruitment of women workers by unauthorized agencies; close to half (45 percent) say it also embraces trading women as payment for an incurred debt or trading them in return for money as well as any other material consideration. More than a third (37 percent) say it is trafficking to bring women to another country or city to work without their consent. Four out of ten (42 percent) include foreign marriage and mail-order bride services in their definition of trafficking.

Personally knowing an actual victim of trafficking is claimed by 15 per cent of all those surveyed nationwide. Making all the necessary adjustments for double-counting, the possibility of faulty recall as well as erroneous information on the part of those interviewed, one may still conclude that well over a million Filipinas are victims of trafficking should the survey figures be projected to the national population.

Among government agencies that might be approached by victims of women trafficking, the police is identified way ahead of the Overseas Workers Welfare (OWWA), the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) or the courts. However, a big plurality (39 percent) of those interviewed also suspect collusion between these agencies and those who run the trade in women trafficking. Among these respondents, the police is also perceived by more people to be in collusion with the traffickers of women.

The public does not have too positive a view of government in the way the latter addresses this issue. Half (50 percent) of those surveyed say government has no effective program or action to fight the trafficking of women. No more than a tiny majority (55 percent) will even grant that the government is able to help eradicate women trafficking in the country.

Eight in ten respondents situate the trafficking of women in the absence or lack of jobs and livelihood opportunities in the country. Only 1 in 10 says its root cause must be found in the absence or breakdown of morality in Philippine society. Almost the same number of people believes that the primary reason for women being trafficked is the absence or lack of laws that criminalize the practice.

Economic pressures are clearly identified by the public as the primary culprit in bringing about women trafficking. Thus 7 out of 10 respondents believe that women victimized by trafficking are in a desperate gamble for a better life. These victims are either deceived or forced into trafficking, according to a similarly large majority (67 percent) of those surveyed. An even larger majority (90 percent) holds out the hope of recovery and a new life to these women. Reflecting a pragmatic sense, however, most of the public advise women trafficking victims to relocate elsewhere and look for another job.

As for possible solutions to the ugly challenge of women trafficking, the majority of Filipinos identify having a law that severely punishes human traffickers and effective law enforcement by the authorities as the leading options. Less than a majority (46 percent) see improving the national economy as the crucial response to the trafficking of women. Even fewer people (30 percent) say improving the morality of the citizenry will turn the situation around.

There appears to be a mismatch in the public situating the problem in economic hardship and at the same time locating the solution in lawmaking and law enforcement. What the public probably is thinking of here is how fast any solution could be made to work. Enacting anti-trafficking laws and enforcing them well may realistically appear to be less difficult to effect than getting the entire national economy to recover – a prospect that seems to become more and more remote as war fever grips the world and economies the Philippines depends on continue to be in recession. Most formidable is the challenge of moral recovery for a nation that has lived for so long on the thinnest edge of life’s sharpest knife. For most people, a kapit-sa-patalim existence invariably makes a bloody mess of morality.

Crafting laws and enforcing them may be very difficult, but the other options are probably looking to most Filipinos now as missions impossible. So, let there be law and law enforcement right away; our economy and the nation’s morality will then have to wait.