I fight trafficking - hanna anderberg es12a

i fight trafficking

”4.5 million children working as child labours” ”I am very proud of seeing them turn into survivors and from a survivor to a fighter”

Read about Human trafficking Cecilia Flores Oebanda World Children’s Prize Visayan Forum

What is human trafficking?

Human trafficking is about recruit, transport or deliver people. In the process people uses threat or violence or any other sources of force to take control of other people. Like a mother having control over her daughter.

The intention is to use someone for prostitution or other sexual utilisation, forced work or slavery.

It is often difficult to draw a line between human trafficking and people smuggling. People smuggling is about transporting a person who wants to be transported to for example another country.

Human trafficking is about a person forced into moving somewhere else and in some cases they are forced into prostitution to pay for their trip.

Mostly women and children are victims.

Children are labeled people under the age of 18.

UN estimates that 1.2 million children are exposed to human trafficking every year. Typical causes for human trafficking is prostitution, sexual assault and tough labor.

Maria Cecilia Flores Oebanda Maria Cecilia Flores Oebanda is the president and founder of Visayan Forum Foundation in the Philippines which focuses on human trafficking and modern slavery.

She was active in the resistance movement against Ferdinand Marcos, the dictator in the Philippines. As a Filipino and a young student she felt like it was her obligation to help free the country from the dictator. She left the village to become a guerrilla leader in the mountain to fight against Marcos.

After 12 years the army captured Flores, nine months pregnant, and brought her to prison where she was going to live for four years and give birth to three children.

She saw her colleges die in front of her eyes and she thought that “maybe it is a bigger purpose that I am alive”.

She had to raise her children in prison and when they got older they asked why they were there. Flores planted a tree inside the prison and as the tree grew, they climbed it and she showed them that there is a life beyond these four walls. For her it was torture to see her children grow up in prison without any trial.

After four years Marcos finally fled the country and Flores and her children was released. Freedom became difficult for the children. They did not know how to act “normally” without a order from a military. Flores brother dressed up as one of the militaries and had to tell them what to do. She took care of all four children by herself since her husband could not live a normal family life, so he left to go back into the mountains.

“When I was in prison I thought that life could not get worse, because we were all in prison. Then I started to rescue girls from human trafficking, from slavery and from child labor and I realised that my problems in life is really nothing compared to what they have gone through. In prison we were still a family, but when it comes to child labor and those who are victims of trafficking, they have nothing.

Some of their families even were the ones selling them. In the Philippines there are around 4.5 million children working as child labours and there are 330 000 victims of trafficking and majority of them are children. It is a huge problem in the Philippines and the Visayan Forum have been able to help more than 70 000 victims in trafficking situations already. The youngest we have rescued is only 8 years old.

Philippines continues to be a migrant country, due to poverty, and Filipinos are send all over the world to work as maids and with construction leaving their children alone behind. Children, who easily falls victims of traffickers.

The Visayan Forum is looking at how to change this and these structural issues so that Filipinos children get less vulnerable to human trafficking and slavery.”

What are you most proud of around the work you have achieved?

“I would say that in this kind of fight you need to be proud everyday in order for you to really to have the perseverance to finish the fight. The traffickers are very powerful and they have money, the media and all the means to destroy you.

For me, personally, every life that I save makes me proud and besides helping them or saving them.. I am very proud of seeing them turn into survivors and from a survivor to a fighter. They are leading the fight against trafficking and also reach out to other children and try to prevent them to become victims to trafficking. So I need to identify everyday gains and battles.

I also need to succeed to change laws not just in the Philippines but globally since this is a global problem.

We are one of the instrumental forces to create international conventions against child labor and trafficking. I work together with Kailash Satyarthi to achieve this. He was the Peace Nobel Prize winner together with Malala. He is like a brother to me. We started together a movement 1998 which is called A Global March Against Child Labor. He conceptualised it in India but we started it in the Philippines.”

The Visayan Forum Visayan Forum was established in 1991 by Flores and is a non-profit, non-stock and tax-exempt non-government organisation in the Philippines. The purpose of Visayan is to fight modern-day slavery and trafficking using innovative methods. One initiative aimed towards schools is called iFight Movement. iFight Movement educates children how to recognise and avoid trafficking. Another initiative is to actively together with the police free children.

WORLD CHILDRENS PRIZE World Children’s Prize, WCP, is an organisation that every year hand out an award for heroes that the children themselves have voted for all over the world. 36 million, under the age of 18, has been given the opportunity to get their voices heard.

Global freedom fighters are supporting WCP like Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi and Graça Machel and Desmond Tutu. H.M Queen Silvia of Sweden is also supporting their work.

Schools all over the world organises their voting day and the three heroes that gets the most votes are nominated to WCP. The work of the three “heroes” and how they have worked with abused children are described in the magazine The Globe.

The Globe is published every year and there you can read about the WCP Kids Jury. The magazine is also used as material to teach children about their rights according to UN and about democracy. You can read about children’s stories from all over the world.

The program is open for everyone between the age of 10 to 18. The age limit is there for giving children, that usually do not get any vote, a chance to vote or get to know what rights they have. They have their right to hear about children in their age all over the world. Now they get a chance to help.

The program is about reaching out to the most vulnerable children so that they can, with help from this program, discover that they have rights.

We are talking about street children, girls that have become victims of trafficking, child soldiers, child slaves and those who are affected by dictators and genocide.

World Children’s Prize was created year 2000 by Magnus Bergmar. It is independent from all politics, religion and is an non-profit organisation that get support from companies like Swedish Postcode and Sida.

How can you help and support?

You can support them by donating money to Visayan Forum or World Children’s Prize.

You can become an iFighter and educate students in schools about trafficking.

You can also talk to your friends about what human trafficking is, its effects, how to recognise signs of sexual abuse and human trafficking around you, for example, on the internet.

If you are a teacher or a headmaster you can organise a global vote in your school and get a chance to see the World Children’s Prize.

Visayan Forum Go to http://www.visayanforum.org/ > Get Involved > Donate Now World Childrens Prize Go to http://worldschildrensprize.org/ > Donate > and select the amount of money you want to donate