Republic of the Philippines

Although the general macroeconomic outlook improved significantly in recent years, the economy still faces several long term challenges. The Philippines must maintain the reform momentum in order to catch up with regional competitors, improve employment opportunities, and alleviate poverty. The Philippines will need still higher, sustained growth to make progress in alleviating poverty, given its high population growth and unequal distribution of income.  [The World Factbook, U.S.C.I.A. 2009]

Human trafficking and modern day slavery THE PHILIPPINES    [Extracted from U.S. State Dept Trafficking in Persons Report, June 2009]

The Philippines is a source, transit, and destination country for men, women, and children trafficked for commercial sexual exploitation and forced labor. A significant number of Filipino men and women who migrate abroad for work are subjected to conditions of involuntary servitude in Bahrain, Brunei, Canada, Cote d’Ivoire, Cyprus, Hong Kong, Japan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Malaysia, Palau, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, Taiwan, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates. Muslim Filipina girls from Mindanao were trafficked to the Middle East by other Muslims.

Filipinas are also trafficked abroad for commercial sexual exploitation, primarily to Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, and countries in Africa, the Middle East, and Western Europe. Internally, women and children are trafficked from poor farming communities in the Visayas and Mindanao to urban areas such as Manila and Cebu City, but also increasingly to cities in Mindanao, for commercial sexual exploitation or for forced labor as domestic servants or factory workers. An increasing number of women and children from Mindanao were trafficked internally and transnationally for domestic work. Traffickers used land and sea transportation to transfer victims from island provinces to major cities. A growing trend continued to be the use of budget airline carriers to transport victims out of the country. Traffickers used fake travel documents, falsified permits, and altered birth certificates. Migrant workers were often subject to violence, threats, inhumane living conditions, non-payment of salaries, and withholding of travel and identity documents. A small number of women are occasionally trafficked from the People’s Republic of China, Russia, South Korea, and Eastern Europe to the Philippines for commercial sexual exploitation. NGOs suggested that organized crime syndicates, including syndicates from Japan, were heavily involved in Manila’s commercial sex industry, where there are many domestic and some foreign victims of trafficking. International organized crime syndicates also transited trafficked persons from mainland China through the Philippines to third country destinations. Child sex tourism continues to be a serious problem for the Philippines, with sex tourists coming from Northeast Asia, Australia, Europe, and North America to engage in sexual activity with minors.