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
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
