Church Outreach

At the IJM Cebu Field Office, we are working with local Churches to build relationships with victims of trafficking. While these girls receive psychological counseling and guidance in Rehabilitation centers, upon re-entering their community, continued support is sadly lacking. As we have found in our research, girls are put back into the risky conditions of broken families and poverty that lead them to being trafficked in the first place.
Anita* was one such case that could have ended bitterly. She was rescued from a raid in 2007, receiving care at a government shelter in Cebu City. While at the center, an eye disease was discovered, caused by years of malnutrition. When she turned eighteen, she was returned to her mother’s place in a squatter’s settlement (The house was no bigger than the size of two bathrooms, housing nine people). Several months later ,when IJM was able to get in contact with her again, not only was she not attending school as she had planned, but her eye-sight had severely deteriorated. IJM was able to intervene and get her the urgent medical care that she needed, but not before permanent damage was done. Fortunately, Anita is now going back to school in Manila and is scheduled for an eye operation in the U.S. But we think that there are a number of things that we can change about victim aftercare to make effective and lasting improvement in these girls’ lives.
One large component is healthy and caring relationships in the community. Church organizations are in the best position to monitor and guide these vulnerable girls. For example, if a concerned member of the church had been in regular contact with Anita, the help she needed would have come a lot sooner. In the future, we’d even hope for church outreach to help families work on becoming a safe household by the time their daughter is scheduled to return. More so, making healthy decisions for oneself requires faith in God, and Churches know a lot about that. They can also provide the kind of role models that these girls need to begin to imagine a life without exploitation.
In December, we had our first Support Group formation, which aims to build individualized projects with Churches in target communities. Please pray that the seed that we’ve planted will grow into fruitful and invaluable relationships for our clients in 2011.
Best Wishes,
Ali

Expressive Art Therapy

Living in the Philippines affords me a number of privileged opportunities. For instance, during a stakeholders' meeting a few months ago, I was put in touch with a priest who conducts expressive art therapy for abused and exploited women and girls. His name is Father Jaque, and he had studied this type of therapy in France and Switzerland before taking up residency in Cebu.

Since I had been a play therapist for autistic children in Los Angeles, I was curious as to how play therapy could be applied to abused and exploited girls. But, I kept the number on my desk for two months before getting up the nerve to call him. I was afraid that I might have been mistaken, that in fact, he worked in a different field, or that he simply would not have any time for me. As it turned out, when we finally met up for coffee one morning, we talked for hours.

Last Sunday I accompanied him to the St. Peters Recovery Home*, about forty minutes out of the city. The house is run by a few progressive Filipina nuns who work to rehabilitate victims of trafficking and other forms of abuse. They welcome Father Jaque every Sunday afternoon. Expressive art therapy, in particular, involves music, dance, drawing, and journaling etc. as a means to healing. I wanted eagerly to participate in this kind of therapy, but as a foreigner, I also didn't want to be instrusive or distracting. Yet, as I watched the departure of a visiting German nun, who cried heartily as she hugged the girls goodbye, I was reminded that outsiders can be just as much a gift to these communities as insiders. In fact, therapy isn't something that one person simply imparts upon another. But rather, it is a fluid exchange of learning from each other.

Significantly, one of the activities is called the 'dance of dignity'. This is where the girls take a piece of silk cloth and dance in a group to classical music, expressing their personal concept of dignity. The music filled the whole house and the movement of the flowing scarves became mesmerizing. The wind blowing from the storm outside only dramatized the moment further. Some girls danced gracefully, some girls giggled light heartedly, while others seemed truly confused with their movements. But as the song took hold, I could see that all of them were searching with all of their heart. Many had been mistreated, and perhaps felt at a loss to express the concept of dignity. But in this vulnerable state, I saw dignity reveal itself in a whole new way. It seemed they expressed it perfectly just in the act of trying.

Father Jaque tells me that some of the girls were sold by their own parents. One, in particular, had been sold by her Auntie to a foreigner at eleven years old. Her name is Desiree* and under threat, she kept the incident a secret from her family. As a result, she grew up believing that her only worth was in selling her body. She ended up working in bars where she was exploited further for several years. Later, her Aunt was arrested for trafficking other minors, and now Desiree receives rehabilitation services here at St. Peters. Today, as we reflected on how we experienced the dance, Desiree had this to say: 'God teaches us that our body is sacred, and that dignity is something that no one can take away.' In front of my eyes, I was witnessing her learn that she is worth more than the way she had been treated. She is learning of God's love and the power of redemption.

Getting to know Desiree allows me to reflect on my own dance of dignity, and how we are all learning how to treat ourselves and eachother. For instance, there are times when I feel full of grace, where my movements are confidant and controlled. Other times I am flailing. But somehow I know that God loves me for trying. So I thank those who have given me the opportunity to take this dance.

Love,

Ali

Project Lantern

This entry is about the some of the debates within the anti-trafficking community, and where Project Lantern fits into it.

Project Lantern is a 5 million dollar IJM project based in the Cebu City field office. Starting in 2007, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation financed IJM to conduct one of the world's first baseline studies on the prevalence of selling minors for sex. The project also set to test whether or not IJM's public justice approach to anti-trafficking would be one to replicate. For instance, Bill and Melinda are concerned with reducing the prevalence of HIV AIDS. So their fear is that working with law enforcement could, as a result, push the sex industry further underground, aggravating sex worker's access to health care. But this question lays within a larger debate. The larger debate goes like this: What is the most effective way of addressing trafficking? Do you start by looking at poverty? Seeking awareness? Fixing the broken public justice system? And within each of these approaches, there are a plethora of ways in which human rights can be compromised in the process. So, although these arguments are thoughtful, they can also lead to an overall sense of the futility of any effort at all.

For instance, it is well known among developed and developing countries alike that law enforcement plays an ambivalent role in protecting the rights of women and children. On the one hand, local law enforcment is needed to ENFORCE the law, and arrest pimps and traffickers. In this way, the local sex industry will be less likely to traffic minors as the risk becomes more and more costly. On the other, law enforcement is sometimes said to be the consumers of the very same establishments that they are raiding. (Indeed, Cebu City had to actually pass a law prohibiting police officers from having sex with the victims whom they had rescued.) Even more so, law enforcement may be paid by brothel owners to look the other way, or to tip them off when they're about to conduct a raid. So is working with law enforcement the way to go?

The President of IJM, Gary Haugen, came to visit last week. He worked for the U.S. Department of Justice for many years before starting this International NGO. His faith in God and comprehension of global injustice was deepened by experiences in South Africa, Rwanda, India, and South East Asia. So it's always such a privilege to hear him speak. On several occassions, he engaged in a few lengthy discussions on his approach to combat trafficking. One citizen of Cebu identified poverty as the main cause of trafficking, considering that the majority of its victims come from poor living conditions. Gary's response was straightforward: 'Although poverty has a relationship with trafficking, trafficking does not exist everywhere that poverty exists. Where traffickers know they are likely to get in trouble, there is less trafficking'. Indeed, Project Lantern's mid-term evaluation has assessed that after two years of police enforcement operations and prosection of perpetrators, the availability of minors for sex in Cebu City decreased by eighty percent. Goodness. That is an incredible statistic.

So IJM can now officially claim headway into the reduction of trafficking by working with law enforcement. This is what their situation looks like: On the books, the law against trafficking in the Philippines is robust. However, because the sex industry is such a lucrative institution- getting law enforcement to ENFORCE these laws is an uphill battle.

This is their approach: IJM works closely with special units of law enforcment created specifically for anti-trafficking. To complement, IJM lawyers work for accountability within the public justice system. And finally, IJM social workers partner with local aftercare in order to look after the long term needs of survivors. And after just a few years of effort, the results are astonishingly positive.

This has been a long entry, so I won't keep you much longer. But I hope that it was helpful. And it's exciting to share with you what IJM is doing here, and how proud I am to be a part of it.

I highly encourage reading this article, which is a more comprehensive review of anti-trafficking efforts in Cebu, Philippines: http://www.alternet.org/reproductivejustice/143264/beyong_rescue_the_crusade_against_sex_trafficking

Hugs to friends and family- I hope everyone is having a great summer,

Love

Ali

As they say in the Philippines, 'Good Morning!'

Hello Everyone! I’ve been in Cebu City for approximately ten days now, and it’s been a whirlwind of an orientation. Usually when a friend comes back from a country of which I’ve never been, the first question that comes to mind is- how different is it? So I’ll just go ahead and address that question off that bat: There is, in fact, aggravated poverty here. And yes, there are some definite lifestyle adjustments to be made. But no, I do not have to speak a different language. As a result, our relative ease of communication has definitely facilitated a smooth transition.

The Philippines was colonized by Spain for over three hundred years, leaving Catholicism as their most visible lasting legacy. However, it was the United States that played a large role in twentieth century Filipino history. The modern school system, for example, was set up by the U.S. Consequently, all formal education is instructed in English- thereby making my efforts to communicate with Filipinos very very easy. But that’s not to minimize their local language, Cebuano. Most Filipinos in the Visayas (where Cebu is located) speak Cebuano in their communities, and defer to English in more formal realms. So learning Cebuano will be an important step to getting a deeper understanding of Filipino culture . . .

Less than two weeks after my arrival, I’m realising that there are many experiences that I’d like to share. So I might fluctuate between informing you of my work (which is absolutely incredible!) and touching upon the cultural discoveries of every-day pass times (like the national obsession with pork).

My fellowship is with an organization which works to rescue trafficked women and girls from local brothels, prosecute traffickers, and rehabilitate the survivors. Our large team is phenomenal in what they do, and I am inspired every day by what they are able to accomplish. In particular, I am working within the Aftercare department, which focuses on giving survivors the opportunity to become economically self-sufficient. This facet has become extremely important, because without it, girls are typically put back into the impoverished conditions which made them vulnerable to being trafficked in the first place.

But employment is complicated: It is simply not enough for a survivor to access vocational training, or, the hard skills. It seems that to get and keep a job, the soft skills, or interpersonal skills, are just as important. As of yet, there is no centralized forum for survivors to learn these skills. Thus, International Justice Mission has been working for a number of years to make that happen. Fortunately, I’ve stepped in at a time where the Job Readiness Program is already established, and the training of the trainers is ready to begin. I will be contributing to the implementation of this training, and I am delighted for the opportunity.

For the sake of brevity, I’ll discuss the second part of my Fellowship in another entry. But so far, I have been able to meet several clients, and am getting to know social workers and other community stakeholders on a daily basis. To the former, it is nothing other than a privilege to meet women who are taking on life’s challenges and forging new paths for themselves. And to the latter, I am so honoured to be surrounded by people who work to restore lives. I only hope to absorb some of their strength, wisdom, and compassion.

Thank you, to everyone who has helped make this effort possible. And I promise to keep you informed, and hopefully encouraged!

Sincerely,

Ali

The Foundations

Hi Friends and Family,


By now, most people are aware of the program that I’ll be involved in through International Justice Mission. But for the sake of clarity, I’ll relay it again via bullet points:

• Where: Cebu, Philippines

• When: 9-12 months, starting June 14th

• What: Skills, education, and job development for rehabilitated
trafficked survivors, ie. women and children

• Who: International Justice Mission, a Christian international human rights organisation which focuses on rescue and rehabilitation of trafficked victims, and legal prosecution of traffickers in fourteen different countries.

Ever since I first read about IJM in Kevin Bale's Ending Slavery: How to Free Today's Slaves (2007), where they helped win the freedom of an entire community of slaves from a Brick Kiln in Uttar Pradesh, I was hooked. It was the summer before the second semester of my graduate program in International Development, and I had decided to get a head start in one of my upcoming classes, Human Trafficking. What I began to learn fascinated me.

No doubt, the figures are compelling: According to Free the Slaves, there could be as many as 27 million people living as someone else's 'property'. It is also well researched that the trade in people is one of the top three most lucrative illegal activities, third only to drugs and arms. And the Coaltion to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking, Los Angeles, asserts that people are cheaper to buy, and therefore more disposable, than in any other time in history (remember, slavery has become illegal relatively recently). Finally, it is even safe to make the sweeping statement that slavery exists virtually 'everywhere' (with developing countries and the former Eastern Bloc acting essentially as source countries, and the more developed countries serving as the typical destination spots).

But in trying to grapple with the scale of this issue, the meaning of this experience can get lost. It wasn't until I discovered who the victims were that this issue became a personal matter to me. As a Development student with a special interest in Gender issues, I have learned that gender discrimination ensures that women and girls make up the brunt of the world's poor. And it is this population all over the globe that become the trafficker's main target. Unfortunately, the most vulnerable are lied to, coerced, or physically forced into unbearable circumstances. But what's even worse, those who are sexually assaulted are rarely accepted back into their home communities. And this is because there is still intense societal pressure on women and girls to 'keep' their virginity until marriage. Even if this is taken from them, their sense of value may never recover. In the wake of such a horrifying experience, and with such limited resources available for recovery, I wonder to myself, where do we go from here?

Needless to say, participating in this project will be one of the most important endeavors of my life. So this blog is created for those who are interested in tracking this journey. There are layers of learning involved in a development project: There is the aspect of learning a new culture, and developing relationships with new communities. On a professional level, there are new skill sets to learn. And most importantly, there is the actual interface of the issues that, thus far, I’ve only been reading and speculating about. So, for all of these matters, I am looking forward to clueing you in on what these experiences are like. I want to thank everyone for being so generous, and helping to make my trip possible. And it is my personal goal to be able to transmit, via internet, not only the struggle, but the pure joy of people coming together for the sake of empowerment.

Lots of love,


Ali