Former Supreme Court Chief Justice Reynato Puno urges Filipinos to “excise the evil of human trafficking” that has been victimizing millions of poor women and children for years. “Unless something radical is done now, the problem will be too overwhelming to solve,” he said at an orientation meeting on Friday, July 12. Puno said even the U.S Department of State admitted in its recent report that the Philippines is one of the worst hit countries by human trafficking. According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), there are nearly two million children in the commercial sex trade. In the Philippines at least 250,000 street children are constantly exposed to sexual exploitation and physical abuse, UNICEF added. Mary Girlie Glen Tupas, community mobilization manager for churches at the International Justice Mission (IJM) of the Puno United Methodist Church, said human trafficking is a difficult activity to break in the country because of the tendency of poverty-stricken victims and their families not to pursue a legal course against traffickers. Tupas said they believe nothing will come out of such an action because they lack the resources to pursue an expensive case. She added that the IJM is exerting its best effort to curb the problem in the country. Former CJ Puno says there is a “challenge to all of us to do something, anything and all things” in order to minimize, if not stop the problem of human trafficking in the Philippines.
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