My Mom Sold My Virginity

Abigail Haworth goes inside Cambodia’s “virgin trade,” the highly secretive upmarket trade a world apart from the rowdy atmosphere presented by the country’s capital, Phnom Penh where sex can be bought at bars and karaoke bars for $10 or more. The expose begins with Dara Keo and her mother Rotana, who are both in tears, as a rickshaw serving as Keo’s transportation to an unknown location arrives. The mother and daughter pair were crying for different reasons. Keo was crying because she was scared, while Rotana was crying because of what she had done: she had sold her daughter’s virginity. The rickshaw driver then brought Keo to an underground medical facility, where a doctor confirmed that Keo’s hymen was intact and gave her a blood test for HIV infection.  “”He confirmed I was a virgin and disease-free,” says Keo, now 17. “Then I was taken to the man who bought me. I had to stay with him for one week while he raped me many times without a condom.”” The clientele for virgins are high-ranking officials from the Cambodian government, military, police force and other members of Asia’s wealthy, who dole out anything between $500 and $5000. Read more about this extensively in the link below.

Full account available at

http://www.marieclaire.com/world-reports/cambodian-virgin-trade

United States to the Philippines: Convict more labor traffickers

On Friday, June 20, 2014, the United States challenged the Philippines to convict more labor traffickers and curb corruption, among other things, as the country failed to meet minimum standards to end the phenomenon. These recommendations came after the country has retained its Tier 2 rating in its annual Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report for the fourth straight year. The TIP 2014 Report, a basis for granting aid, is given to countries whose governments “do not fully comply” with the Trafficking Victim Protection Act’s minimum standards, “but are making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance with those standards.” According to the report, “The government of the Philippines does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so.” In giving the Tier 2 rating the report cited a number of gains, including the increase in funding for the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking to around $2.4 million in 2013 as well as the 31 trafficking convictions. In spite of this, the country did not make “significant progress in ensuring victims could access specialized services.” The report also took note of the “severely limited” protection for male victims. Corruption at all levels of government, including in Philippine diplomatic missions abroad, has been cited as enabling traffickers and undermining the government’s overall efforts to combat trafficking. A key finding is that the country “did not obtain any convictions for labor trafficking” from April 1, 2013 to March 31, 2014, while in contrast the government “convicted 31 sex trafficking offenders, compared with 25 during the previous year.” The report also said, “The government continued to prosecute sex and labor trafficking offenses and to impose stringent sentences on convicted sex traffickers, but it did not make progress in convicting labor traffickers and its overall number of convictions remained low compared to the size of the problem.” While the Philippines retained its rating, Thailand, Malaysia and Venezuela were dumped at the bottom of a list of countries accused of failing to tackle human trafficking. This lower tier of designation could trigger US sanctions. “The scale of human trafficking is staggering. The International Labor Organization estimates some $150 billion in profits are generated annually for private businesses from trafficking, of which $99 billion goes to the sex industry.”

Full account available at

http://www.rappler.com/nation/61173-us-philippines-trafficking-persons-report-2014

Teens “fed once a day” rescued from recruiters

Police rescued 70 women, 30 of whom were minors as young as 16, from an human trafficking lair that only gave them one cup of rice daily, among other abuses. The Philippine National Police’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) said that on Tuesday, June 17, it raided the Happy World Human Resources Recruitment Agency located along Suerte Street, Pasay City, after receiving a complaint from one of the victims. The 16-year-old victim ran to the CIDG after she managed to escape fro the company. The director of the CIDG, Benjamin Magalong, said the girl was recruited to work as a domestic helper in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. She had come all the way from Cotabato, and was picked up at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport by a woman she refers to as “Ms. Ellen”. Magalong said she “was given a phony birth certificate bearing the name of a fictitious person and was told to change her age from 16 to 23.” Magalong also said that around 70 others were “not allowed to use their cellphones, had to sleep on the floor, and were being fed with a cup of rice a day.” Those who recruited them will be charged for violation of the Migrant Workers’ Act of 1995 and the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2003. The Migrant Workers’ Act penalizes illegal recruitment, which includes, among other things, using false information to secure a license under the Philippines’ Labor Code. On the other hand, the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act defines trafficking as an act, among others, “to recruit…under pretext of domestic or overseas employment or training or apprenticeship, for the purpose of prostitution, pornography, sexual exploitation, forced labor, slavery, involuntary servitude or debt bondage.” Human trafficking continues to be a problem in the country, and as a result the United States had retained its Tier 2 rating in its annual Trafficking in Persons Report, which is a basis for granting aid. Although convictions for human trafficking have increased over the years, these cases remain concentrated in certain areas in the Philippines.

Full account available at

http://www.rappler.com/nation/60915-teens-rescued-trafficking