Title Page

Copyright Page

ii

Foreword

iii

Acknowledgment

iv

Table of Contents

List of Acronyms

vi

Synthesis

vii

viii

Executive Summary

The evACuATion oF reSidenTS in the central region of Mindanao and its southwestern island provinces had always been due to the armed conflict in southern Philippines.
While the Philippine government has been engaged in peace negotiations with the last Moro insurgent group, the Moro islamic Liberation Front (MiLF), instances of deadlock, or collapse in the talks would always spell trouble to the peace in the villages. (The government earlier ended with a peace settlement in September 1996 its other peace negotiations with the Moro national Liberation Front, when it created the Special Zone of Peace and development to cover even the provinces currently not
9

dominated by any of the Moro tribes but which they historically populated and claimed as their ancestral land.) When another deadlock in peace talks between the government and the MiLF happened again in 2008, the large-scale displacement of civilian residents in central Mindanao brought untold suffering, deprivation and hardship. Many internally-displaced persons (idPs)1 were deprived of their livelihood, education and access to basic services. With many issues in the peace talks still unresolved and with intermittent battles occurring, residents were often forced to stay longer in the evacuation centers or idP camps. As options for survival in the evacuation centers, plagued by diseases and death of children, become narrowed and few, this particular exodus of helpless and hapless rural residents has also provided a venue for some groups or individuals, including traffickers of persons, to prey on their vulnerabilities. Studies have already linked armed conflict to the alarming incidence of human trafficking in flashpoints of conflict in the world, as recruiters find multiple advantages to recruit in areas with a large concentration of people in distress. Among these idPs, women are particularly vulnerable to trafficking during conflict due to lack of economic opportunities and gender inequalities. The present study seeks to closely examine the inter-relation between internal displacement caused by the Mindanao conflict and the reported cases of human trafficking. it is precipitated by several accounts of trafficking among idP women and taking into account as well the prevalence of human trafficking in the Philippines which is a known source, transit and destination. Several idP women have been interviewed for this study and they narrate varying accounts of human trafficking and illegal recruitment. A list of recommendations as suggested by respondents is presented at the end of the study.
1 internally displaced persons are persons or groups of persons who have been forced or obliged to flee or to leave their homes or places of habitual residence, in particular as a result of or in order to avoid the effects of armed conflict, situations of generalized violence, violations of human rights or natural or human-made disasters, and who have not crossed an internationally recognized State border.

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Chapter 1 Introduction

evACuATionS hAve beCoMe A WAy of life for many residents in central Mindanao due to the unpredictable turn in the peace negotiations between government troops and guerrillas of the MiLF, which started in 1997. These areas are specifically in the provinces of Maguindanao, western north Cotabato, southern Lanao del Sur and northwestern Sarangani.
There had been large evacuations in 2000 and in 2003, usually during a breakdown in the negotiations. Again in 2008, another large-scale displacement of civilians in central Mindanao following the collapse of the peace talks brought another episode of untold suffering, deprivation and hardship.
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Many internally-displaced persons were deprived of their livelihood, education and access to basic services. Food, water and other necessities were scarce in the evacuation centers resulting to the outbreak of many diseases, especially afflicting children and women. When families evacuate, it is the women who experience additional burden in terms of carrying out productive roles. They are usually ones left alone to care for the children, the aged, and the wounded. issues of survival and increased marginalization of the women occur in conflict-affected communities where the division of labor along sexual, or gender consideration and prejudice, determines allocation of resource, rights and opportunities are observed. Many women also experience mental stress or the psychological impact of the armed conflict and its consequences. They have to attend to the needs of family members who have been scarred even while they themselves suffer from severe stress. As food producers, procurers and preparer, these women go through increased hardship due to the scarcity of food, limited mobility, economic restriction and the devastation of livestock and crops (eleazar, Aplarador and brongcano, n.d.). With no access to their lands, they have been forced to engage in irregular, low-paid jobs to survive. displaced children, many of whom have had their education interrupted by their displacement, have been vulnerable to trafficking, recruitment into armed groups, malnutrition and health problems due to their prolonged stay in overcrowded emergency centers. Many of those who managed to return still have acute assistance and rehabilitation needs, reported the Geneva-based international displacement Monitoring Center referring to the Mindanao idPs. Thus, armed conflict is linked to human trafficking. Massive disruptions of social and economic activities, the destruction of lives and property, displacement and human insecurity breed situations that are ripe for trafficking. War and instability cause breakdown in law and order, a determination of institutional and social protection mechanisms, increased poverty, deprivation, and dislocation of the civilian

12

population, creating an environment in which trafficking flourishes. Traffickers take advantage of the opportunity to exploit the vulnerable. They prey on those who are forcibly displaced or compelled to migrate in search of safety and stability, both internally and across borders, and they forcibly abduct those who lack adequate protection. (Martin 2009: 1) Women are particularly vulnerable to trafficking during conflict. Gender inequalities, lack of status, and inadequate livelihood opportunities leave many women at an increased risk of trafficking during conflict situations. (Martin 2009a:1) This study seeks to closely examine the inter-relation between internal displacement caused by the Mindanao conflict and the cases of human trafficking that have been going on but which are largely undocumented. The study is precipitated by several accounts of trafficking among idP women in the evacuation centers, and taking into account as well the prevalence of human trafficking in the Philippines, which has been identified as a source, transit and destination of trafficked persons. The uS department of State 2006 human rights report discloses that the number of Philippine and foreign child victims in the country range from 20,000 to 100,000. The uS State department also reports that Philippine men, women, and girls were trafficked for labor3 and sexual exploitation to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the united Arab emirates, Qatar, bahrain, Malaysia, hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, South Africa, north America, and europe. The government and nGo estimates on the number of women trafficked range from 300,000 to 400,000 and the number of children trafficked range from 60,000 to 100,000. Many Filipino men and women voluntarily migrate to work abroad but later coerced into exploitative conditions. Aside from this, the report also states that the Philippines has an internal trafficking of women and children from rural areas, particularly the visayas and Mindinao, to urban areas, such as Metro Manila and Cebu, for sexual exploitation or forced labor as domestic workers, factory workers, or in the drug trade.

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Trafficking in persons is defined in Article 3 of the 2000 un Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children as follows:
Trafficking in persons shall mean the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs (united nations 2000, 2).

Aspects of this definition have been clarified by the Special rapporteur on the human rights Aspects of the victims of Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children: (1) that the consent of the victim is irrelevant if any of the means in the above paragraph were used for recruitment purposes; 2) the aim of the Protocol is not to abolish prostitution but rather to abolish coercive practices; and 3) the Protocol does not characterize trafficking solely as a transnational problem; it can occur within a country just as easily (un Commission on human rights 2006, 9). internal trafficking, or the trafficking of people within countries, is, to some extent, similar to internal displacement. Martin (2009b) establishes the connection with a comparison of its respective features. internal displacement is coerced or involuntary movement that takes place within national borders. The un Guiding Principles on internal displacement defines idPs as persons or groups of persons who have been forced or obliged to flee or leave their homes or places of habitual residenceand who have not crossed an internationally recognized international boundary. The displacement may be caused by a number of reasons including armed conflict, situations of generalized violence, violation of human rights, and natural or human-made disasters. Likewise, human trafficking also involves forced or coerced

14

movements that is being addressed to by states adopting the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children which is also applicable to internal trafficking. Sometimes people are kidnapped outright and taken forcibly to another location. in other cases, traffickers use deception to entice victims to move with false promises of well-paying jobs such as models, dancers or domestic workers. in some instances, traffickers approach victims or their families directly with offers of lucrative jobs elsewhere. After providing transportation to get victims to their destinations, they subsequently charge exorbitant fees for those services, creating debt bondage. What begins as voluntary movement ends up coerced. (Martin 2009b) Martin brings the argument further by saying that internal trafficking victims are also internally displaced persons (idPs). internal trafficking, she says, is to transnational trafficking what internal displacement is to refugee movements. internal trafficking and internal displacement intersect in other respects. Persons who have been internally displaced by conflict, violations of human rights and natural or human-made disasters are more vulnerable to trafficking. idPs often lack family and community networks as well as economic opportunities, making them vulnerable to promises of better situations elsewhere. The Guiding Principles call for protection of idPs from slavery, including sale into marriage, sexual exploitation and forced labour of children. Conflict also precipitates direct forms of trafficking. internally displaced children who are abducted or forcibly recruited as soldiers, for example, are also victims of trafficking, as are those who are coerced into forced labour or prostitution. A sudden increase in trafficking for sexual exploitation often occurs when peacekeeping forces are deployed in conflict zones. While one of the responsibilities of these troops may be to protect iPds, their use of brothels may contribute to both internal and international trafficking. (Martin 2009b)

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Chapter 2 Literature Review

ThiS ChAPTer PreSenTS A revieW on existing studies and references on two major areas: one, on migration in general, and the other, on forced migration. in both, the situation of women is likewise discussed in depth.
Migration in General Migration is traditionally classified according to the degree of choice involved in the decision to leave home and thus may either be voluntary or forced. voluntary migrants exercise maximum choice when they head for new horizons, most often for economic reasons, while involuntary migrants exercise no choice when they
16

are forced out of their homes. however, recent migration studies point to the weakness of this definition as it is established that few migrants are wholly voluntary or wholly involuntary. Almost all migration involves some kind of compulsion; at the same time almost all migration involves choices. (van hear 1998a, 42). in the context of the economic situation in a country or place, battistella (2005) explains migration as both the result of inadequate development as well as a symptom of the harmful consequences of development. Migration is seen as a social phenomenon motivated by economic reasons. Poverty is the main cause of Filipino migration (CbCP, 1995 as cited in (battistella, 2005, p. 24). The search for work and a better standard of living, or even survival, pulls young people and couples from their places of origin (CbCP, 1988 as cited in (battistella, 2005, p. 24). To this, social and national instability, and natural and man-made disasters should also be added (CbCP, 1998 as cited in battistella, 2005, p. 24). however, the cause does not lie simply in the needs of countries of origin, but also in the serious labor shortage (CbCP, 1989 as cited in battistella, 2005, p. 24) of receiving countries. Migration is essentially a way of coping with conflict, unemployment, natural or man-made disasters, a mechanism for people to try and improve their social standing, a mechanism for building up social insurance, or a combination of all of these. in most cases in the Philippines, the search for employment becomes the motivating factor which forces people to migrate. The absence of opportunities in their communities pushes them to risk lives and limbs in exchange for any kind of work. even in situations where the work conditions are sub-human, the worker migrant would prefer to stay rather than go home where no work is available. Paradoxically, the seeming obsession of finding a means to earn a living also tempers the endurance against abuses thereby tolerating any, in most instances. This, according to Torton ( 2003), makes forced migrants as people with relatively few choices and relatively few options especially for women, migration carries serious problems of morality, poverty, and injustice that affect people (CbCP, 1988 as cited in battistella, 2005).
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Cases of exploitation and abuse of women migrants have been regularly reported. They are not just perpetrated in receiving countries, but also in countries of origin, particularly by illegal recruiting agencies (battistella, 2005). Women now constitute 50% or more of all migrants workers, and from countries such as indonesia and Philippines, migrant workers outnumber men. (uniFeM, 2005). in 2002, there were 135,000 women from Mindanao who joined the international labor market, the majority (88,020) of whom were women (The Mindanao Commission on Women, 2004,p153). uniFeM (2005) aptly labeled it as feminization of Asian Migration. Most oFWs were at the peak of their productive working age. region X1 contributed the largest number of women to overseas labor while the least from Caraga region. The Middle east and Asia were top favorite destinations of oFWs, (The Mindanao Commission on Women, 2004). The hike in oil prices in the 1970s, shifted the geography of labor migration from Western europe to the oil-rich Gulf countries. With their increased affluence, bahrain, Kuwait, oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and united Arab emirates (uAe) invested in massive infrastructure projects which required workers. Short of workers and wary of depending on neighboring countries, the Gulf countries turned to Asia, india, Pakistan and bangladesh, and later, the republic of Korea (hereafter, South Korea), the Philippines and Thailand which sent large numbers of workers in the 1970s (Asis, 2005). A phenomenon called feminization of migration started in the late 1970s when Gulf countries began recruiting domestic workers. Labor migration has since bifurcated into male migration, to address the shortage of workers in the productive and public sectors (construction, manufacturing, agriculture), and female migration in response to the shortage of care workers in private households (Asis, 2005). uniFeM (2005) explains that having not enough education for them to land in higher form of jobs, many women ended up as domestic helpers or migrant domestic workers (MdW). in

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fact, according to uniFeM (2005), the heaviest concentration of women migrant workers is at the lower end of the job hierarchy, in domestic work and the entertainment sector, or the unprotected sectors (Asis, 2005) where they suffer gross human rights violations (uniFeM, 2005). uniFeM (2005) categorizes women migrant workers as both voluntary and involuntary, including those working abroad as consequence of trafficking activities The bahrain Labor Law of 1976 categorizes domestic workers as nannies (who take care of children), gardeners, cooks, drivers (for private houses), and domestic maids, Women migrants are generally restricted to work in only three of these categories, namely working as nannies, cooks and domestic maids ( uniFeM, 2005). There has been in recent year an increase on the export of young female migrant labor (The Mindanao Commission on Women, 2004). Cabarahan and Fernandez (2004) corroborates this as they emphasized that out-of-school children and youth and children can be source of cheap labor. They may fall easy prey into the trap of organized crimes such as recruitment for domestic work in Arab countries trafficking especially young women) or they can be easily lured to get involvement with illegal activities ( drugs and /or gun-running). due to lack of choices and opportunities within the country, many girls choose to engage in high risk occupation abroad, including being trafficked for prostitution. This explains an evergrowing number of undocumented oFWs, many of them women. (The Mindanao Commission on Women, 2004) during the recruitment, the migrants need to secure a job abroad often leads them to undertake shortcuts in the process or to ignore usual precautions. Consequently they engage the series of unlicensed recruiters, or are led into agreeing to participate in the forgery of documents, particularly concerning age, when age is limited for identity. They are convinced into signing substandard contracts, or contracts that are not valid. They have to pay fees in excess of what is regulated and to enter the country of destination through irregular routes (battistella, 2005)

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in most cases members of the family are involved in the recruitment process. bartunkova (2006, p.) explained that family members, community members and friends are often involved in the recruitment of migrant workers. They may be misled about the real nature of the work in the destination place, but in many cases they recruit the worker knowing that she/he will be subjected to violence, threat of violence, forced labour or sexual exploitation. Left by their own government to survive for themselves in a foreign land, the migrants become doubly vulnerable as Asis (2005) explained. The working and living conditions of migrant workers (particularly women migrants) are mostly negotiated between workers and employers. Legal migrant workers should be protected by the employment contract, but in reality, there are many cases of contract substitution or contract violation. in a study on the premigration experiences of Filipino migrant workers, participants shared that the real contract is the actual conditions that they will find in the workplace. battistella (2005) argued, however, that migrants normally have no voice in discussing working conditions (hours of work, weekly rest, labor relations), and living conditions (lodging and social relations), also because they are not familiar with the laws, the customs and the language of the place. There are cases of delayed payment of wages, wage retention, or non-payment of wages or lower wages than men for jobs of the same or similar nature. Work insurance covering accidents on the job is not always available and medical insurance is not provided for. Throughout all these, migrants do not have many alternatives since at the back of their minds is the need to accumulate earnings which would, first of all, be used to pay off the debt incurred to obtain the job abroad (battistella, 2005). This debt is due to mortgage or sell land, homes and crops, or large loans allocated to pay the fees charged by recruitment agencies which promise them a job placement overseas. Confiscation of an migrants passport and residence documents makes these migrant women particularly vulnerable (uniFeM, 2005). uniFeM (2005) likewise cited forms of abuses as contract substitution, no rest days, poor living and working conditions that

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reduce privacy and safety levels, and the situation much worse for women. Also included are abandonment, sexual and physical abuse en route to countries of employment, and stigmatization by family and community when women return earlier than scheduled without savings or traumatized (uniFeM, 2005). devastating physical abuse amounting to torture has been inflicted on migrant women and permanent injuries or deaths have occurred. Attacks against migrant women may include slapping and punching, beating with objects, scalding with hot water or objects, and other abuses that constitute grievous assault. bullying by repeated threats to terminate the worker so that she would be immediately deported is common (uniFeM, 2005). in terms of working hours, a lack of legal protection and the proximity of the worker to the employer means that the migrant worker can find herself constantly on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. (uniFeM, 2005). iLo as cited in uniFeM (2005) in a national studies of MdWs in four Arab states found that those women working an average of 101 to 108 hours per week. often the migrant women is expected to not only take care of the employers household, but also work at the family store, and possibly clean other relatives houses, as well. More so, the basic freedom of migrant women to have social interaction with peers are either very limited or not provided at all (uniFeM, 2005). Migrant women also suffer the consequences peculiar to the occupations they work in. Women in some countries have to go through periodic pregnancy tests. opportunities to learn the language are limited, thus diminishing the possibility of seeking access to courts and to find redress for torts or abuse (battistella, 2005). Migration raises issues of race, gender, language, culture, customs, laws and religious differences, which are perceived as threatening by receiving countries (battistella, 2005) in the home front, the female deployment overseas also left adverse impact and severe stress on families left behind. The departure of the mother-wife and household managers has resulted, for instance, in the loss of family solidarity. in some

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households, men unused to gender roles reversal become totally dependent on their wifes income. The care of younger children falls on elder children or their grandparents. Where long spouse absence becomes untenable for the husband, a second wife is often found (The Mindanao Commission on Women, 2004). unemployment at home and inhuman working conditions abroad often give oFWs little choice as to whether to stay on or go home. Many japayukis, or Filipino women working as entertainers in Japan, domestic helps and factory workers often opt to go undocumented and take chances at irregular jobs that allow them to save money or find some other means of survival (e.g. finding a foreign husband or a kind employer). being an illegal alien makes migrant worker ineligible for protection and basic health services. So that often, they are forced into situations where they have to get into temporary emergency live-in arrangements for the sake of survival. (The Mindanao Commission on Women, 2004). The lack of a multilateral approach to human rights in the highly diversified Asian region also stands as a deterrent to the rapid adherence of Asian countries to international instruments on the protection of migrants (battistella, 2005). As the volume of migration increase, governments increasingly rely on the private sector to handle the recruitment, screening and placement of migrant workers while government attends to regulatory functions. Although governments are involved in labor migration, their involvement is limited to migration-related matters. in the countries of origin, the state is involved in promoting or facilitating labor migration and in ensuring that their nationals leave with the proper travel and work documents. Some countries of origin invest in preparing their workers through training or pre-departure information programs. in the countries of destination, the hand of the state is visible in regulating migrant workers number, admission, work, and stay. Although there are some attempts at regulating the migration industry, the efforts are not sufficient. There is also the temptation of leaving things to the market forces (Asis as cited in Asis, 2005).

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Forced Migration on the other hand, forced migration refers to the movements of refugees and internally displaced people (those displaced by conflicts within their country of origin) as well as people displaced by natural or environmental disasters, chemical or nuclear disasters, famine, or development projects. The flow or movement of persons in forced migration occur because of a variety of causal factors, including persecution, natural and industrial disasters, development projects, environmental degradation, war and conflict, ethnic discrimination, etc. A number of paradigms have been produced in an attempt to capture the full range of these causes (see, e.g., richmond 1996, van hear 1998a). in general, though, the two categories of forced migrants most often discussed in the literature are refugees and internally displaced persons (idPs). The united nations defines idPs as persons or groups of persons who have been forced or obliged to flee or to leave their homes or places of habitual residence, in particular as a result of or in order to avoid the effects of armed conflict, situations of generalized violence, violations of human rights or natural or human-made disasters, and who have not crossed an internationally recognized State border. (un Commission on human rights 1998, para. 2). This definition was formalized in 1998 in the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, a series of 30 principles that provide a legal and normative framework for providing protection to idPs While in theory the Guiding Principles should help raise awareness of internal displacement issues and promote protection for all idPs no matter their cause of flight, in practice, the definition of idPs remains contested, with some continuing to advocate that the term only apply to those fleeing conflict, violence and persecution (Mooney 2005, 9). Moreover, because different agencies have different operational mandates relating to idPs, the concept tends to be divided into three subsets: conflict-displaced, disaster-displaced and development-displaced.

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Chapter 3 Methodology

The STudy WAS ConduCTed in areas where massive evacuations took place in 2008, namely Cotabato, Maguindanao and Lanao del norte. Focus Group discussions (FGd) and Key informant interviews (Kii) were conducted in several idP camps in Maguindanao, a housing project for idPs located in Cotabato, and in residential areas of Lanao del norte.
Selected as FGd participants were families who have had direct experiences with migration. Kiis were conducted among personnel from government agencies (Philippine overseas employment Administration office of the Autonomous region
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in Muslim Mindanao) and key leaders of local government units (municipal welfare officers), barangays, nGos and church. one recruitment agency in Cotabato was also interviewed. immigration officers were interviewed as well. during the focused group discussion, facilitators presented a flip-chart that outlined all the questions written in Tagalog. All responses were written in a separate manila paper which served as the answer sheet. responses in Maguindanao were translated into Tagalog before these were confirmed and validated by a member of the research team who was fluent in Maguindanao. Answers were shared to the group and discussed. on concepts, basic symbols were generated from the crucial terms used in this study. Crayons with the basic eight colors were freely scattered in the FGd venues. The participants were free to choose whatever color they desired for their drawings. They select from among themselves, somebody who can articulate their thoughts through sketches or drawing. Some women drew the symbol themselves and asked the groups approval before they presented it. Processing was centered on how this symbol represented their idea. validation of the generated responses were conducted six weeks after each FGd. People who had direct experiences with recruitment in the idPs were also interviewed. narratives of forced migrants were also generated. Secondary documents regarding idPs and forced migration were maximized to provide additional information for the study. data that were generated from the different sources were quadrangulated to allow a broad perspective on the subject matter. Mixed sampling, involved purposive non-probability sampling design and snowballing techniques, were applied in the conduct of the study.

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Table 1. Number of Respondents

RESPONDENTS FGD Women Women PROVINCES AREA/AGENCY Men KII Men 21 3 1 18 0 0 4 26 22 7 18 1 4 9 3 6 124 TOTAL

Cotabato

Sulok,Aleosan BLGU/LGU/LA/ NGO/Church RECRUITMENT AGENCY

18

2 3 1

Maguindanao

Datu Piang Makir IDP Camps Macasendeg BLGU/LGU/NGO/ Church

15 18 15

1 2 5

2 6 2 3

Lanao del Norte

Kauswagan BLGU/LGU/LA/ NGO/Church

13

2 2 2

Others TOTAL

Embassy/OWWA. NLRC 79 12

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Chapter 4 Human Trafficking among IDPs

AT The evACuATion CAMPS, SoMe individuals and groups have been going around and working their way through the throng of desperate and displaced poor residents, away from the scrutinizing public eye, to recruit idPs for whatever difficult and unprotected jobs there were available elsewhere in the Philippines and abroad.
The recruiters would not find it difficult to find the applicants: with the difficult situation and quandary at the evacuation
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centers, the desire for a quick way out would be all compelling and tempting for families. The uncertain future in the temporary and cramped evacuation centers would have expectedly narrowed down the choices of the many displaced families, that any opportunity for livelihood would be primordial above the concern for safety and security of the family member applying for the job. often, it would be the younger member to grab the offer of recruiters. With the absence of many males in the households in the evacuation camps, who have to work elsewhere or tend the deserted farms during daylight, the choice, or the yoke, was being placed on the girls who were barely in their teens. Authorities have no exact number of these household members who have been recruited to uncertain and difficult jobs, a trend that was largely suspected as undocumented cases of human trafficking. The iligan City-based nongovernment organization, ecoWeb, which links up with government and international relief agencies admitted that it has not monitored the trafficking of idPs due to their concentration on rendering relief and counseling services to the idPs. yet it disclosed that their personnel have received repeated flow of information that some family members of the idPs have left the evacuation camps to go with the recruiters. ecoweb said that information were scattered, but what seemed to facilitate the trafficking of mostly minors, was the fact that many of the recruiters were also their relatives. Some would send feedback that these recruits have already reached Cebu and Manila. As to who accompanied them we are yet to check and verify, regina Antequisa, executive director of ecoWeb, divulged in this survey. ecoWeb cited the case of several health workers it had trained all throughout its course of catering to the idPs in the several instances of evacuations in Central Mindanao. Through the years,

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they have trained young women on primary health care to serve as their extension workers in the communities affected by the armed conflict, or areas where there were idPs in evacuation centers. Like what happened when an armed encounter happened in Piagapo [Lanao del Sur], those we have trained to be community health workers have not returned to work, Antequisa said. Many of them went to Manila, but we dont know if they have found jobs there from the skills that we have given them. Many of the trained health workers were under 20 years old, mostly 17 and 18. So it means that as young people they are more prone to migrate and go with recruiters, if there are jobs. Still there were would be more others who could not be traced by any government and nongovernment organizations, their whereabouts only known to their families, which may not easily disclose the information. With destinations unknown, it remains uncertain too, on where these mostly teenaged girls would end up to. A 2004 study by the Mindanao Commission on Women found out that there has been in recent years an increase on the export of young female migrant labor and warned that at their fragile age and poor education, the young women have become source of cheap labor. That study also warned that the young female migrants may fall easy prey into the trap of organized crimes such as recruitment for domestic work in Arab countries (trafficking of young women) or they can be easily lured to get involvement with illegal activities (drugs and /or gun-running). due to lack of choices and opportunities within the country, many girls choose to engage in high risk occupation abroad, including being trafficked in prostitution. This explains an evergrowing number of undocumented of oFWs, many of them women, the Mindanao Commission on Women study added. The ecoWeb said it could not prevent these young women to leave especially that with an unstable situation in their midst, the choice was easy to leave and grab any opportunity.

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in Lanao del Sur, for instance, one group of idPs had been encamped since 2000 in Marawi City, the capital of the province. These idPs came from the town of Monay, and their number has swelled when a massive evacuation happened again in August 2008 after violence erupted over the controversial and unsigned Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral domain (MoA-Ad). This document was supposed to be the third comprehensive agreement in the peace negotiation between the government and the Moro islamic Libeation Front. Antequisa warned that the exact number of those displaced in the 2000 war may have already dwindled but they have not returned to their villages and yet we dont know where these people went. The organization also disclosed that it could not find any monitoring information from the city government.

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Chapter 5 Illegal Recruitment among IDPs

AS SiTuATionS oF ConFLiCT PrevenT families from returning to their farms, the economic outlook was far worse and bleak at the evacuation centers.
What makes conditions unbearable was that the families were the rural poor in the countrys most blighted provinces, where their link to existence was their farms that they also do not own. unfortunately the sporadic armed skirmishes also happened in these areas, and thus the desire to get out of the mess became urgent.

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Without the armed skirmishes, natural conditions also present a harsh daily battle for families living in the steep slopes or floodbattered plains. residents in the Maguindanao area, in the village of Sulok, for instance, described their place as such. its really difficult. When you plant corn, these are carried by the flood, when you plant rice, these are eaten by the black bug, a resident said during a focused-group discussion in the area. The rice farms were currently full of weeds when they fled their villages when soldiers burned their houses, destroyed even the hollow blocks and got the other parts of the houses, like the galvanized iron sheets, that could be used later. The livestocks were also lost in the deep river water or killed. one got insane when his son drowned. Maybe he got warshocked. Some women and childen wee traumatized, the respondents said. it was at their worst in the evacuation centers when residents admitted that many of their kin had to leave them for overseas job, as recruiters also prowl on their weakness and their inability to scrutinize if the recruiters and placement agency have legal papers to operate. Thus, illegal recruitment in these places could easily fall under one of the forms of human trafficking, as one of the means by which human trafficking occurs, and as one of the factors that contribute to and aggravate human trafficking. recruitment was all-year round, at any time of the day. it depends if there are children who they think are ready to be sent abroad. The only reason is to help the families in the evacuation center. A certain doc of Sitio Sulok and a certain Charlie Kiram of Sitio dalican, both of datu Piang were common fixtures in the recruitment activity in the evacuation center. The recruitment process was quick: First, the recruiter would explain his intention and the expected income abroad. Second, the recruiter would ask for down payment, in this case, doc or
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Charlie required P4,000 to process the birth certificate, passport, nbi clearance and other documents. residents claim that the passports were usually given to the willing recruit the moment he gave his nod to the recruiter. The recruits from many Central Mindanao provinces commonly chose Jordan, Syria, riyadh and Kuwait as preferred job areas. you are right. its sad to see your children leave you for overseas work, the respondents said. Warda Antao, 24 of Makir, Sinsuat, Maguindanao, went to dubai, united Arab emirates in 2005, for a two year contract and traveled again to Jordan, for another two year contract, in both instances as domestic help. Antao was then a minor when she was sent for domestic job, and her travel papers faked by the agency. She was not Antao in the passport. her name was dading baisan Ampilan, a name she said was her neighbors. She said she did not line up to apply for a passport; it was only the recruitment agency and her relative who recruited her who followed up her documents. She received it later with her picture in it but under a different name. She let these things happened. Agabai F. eli, also of the village of Makir, said she was 30 years old at the time of the interview but was unsure of the exact birth date because our elders were not used to record anything. yet, she would estimate that she was around 14 years old then when she went out for a domestic job, to take care of a baby, in Qatar in the Middle east. She ran away from her employer from out of fear, after she was warned by her employer that she would be blamed if anything bad happened to the child. isnt it that at 14 you always wanted to sleep?, she said. Just like Antao, she was given a passport whose name was not hers but from that of a resident of Zamboanga City. For one week, i have to familiarize her signature. She applied for the job in Manila, where she was sent by her mother to escape the periodic evacuation in the place, and to live with her brother there. her brother overheard from a recruiter that
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an agency was looking for an applicant for Qatar, that there was already a passport to use. The recruitment activity in the evacuation centers was not absolutely contained among the recruiters, the prospects and their families and the other idPs. The nongovernment group, ecoWeb, said it has been receiving the reports already that those who left for jobs were minors, but it said that it left the issue to itself due to lack of monitoring to tract them and to determine what had developed since then. The group said it could not ascertain if the decision of the youngsters were properly made and did the recruits had really worked in the places that were promised to them. The group was apprehensive however, with the questionable recruitment process and with the tight guarding of information by family members to defend family reputation even if they knew that the recruitment was illegal. ecoWeb was referring to the maratabat among the Maranao Muslims residing in the Lanao area, a strong cultural sense of individual and clan pride, often defended and protected at the point of death. in another case, it would be a village official who would be acting as the recruiter for another recruitment agency. nop P. usok, the barangay captain of Macacendig, datu Piang in Maguindanao would not hide the fact that he has already sent about 30 residents of his barangay, all of them his relatives. he did this to ensure that his relatives were properly handled, and rather than getting his relatives into the hands of illegal recruiters. he served as sub-agent of a placement agency for five years already, but he insisted that he did not demand anything from his relatives that he recruited. it was his way of helping them find work to ease the difficulty that their families have been experiencing. he would occasionally give money to the recruits who were his relatives to help them process travel documents. he would be receiving gifts though, from those who eventually land on overseas jobs when they came back home successful.
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This was his personal advocacy following a painful experience of his sister in Jeddah whose nine months worth of salary were deducted from her by the agent and the agency. he did not want others to experience that again. he said about four or five were unsuccessful though. Those lucky enough have kind employers. These migrant workers recruited at the evacuation centers said they left for work abroad because they wanted to ensure that there would be food in the table for their families, that they would be able to pay family debts incurred in the evacuation centers, to pay the borrowed money used to sending them abroad, to construct a house, to buy back mortgaged land, to buy farm animals, to provide burial expenses of relatives and to help in the dowry and Muslim wedding of a brother. Amy Crisostomo , the oiC-regional secretary of the overseas Workers Welfare Administration-ArMM, the main reason for seeking job abroad was poverty. Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur belonged to the countrys poorest provinces. even if it would be very difficult for a Moro woman to leave the children and family she has to endure that rather than to see her children unable to go to school. due to lack of education, faked travel papers and lack of training, the recruits often end up in the lower rung of available jobs, usually only the domestic jobs with wages at only $200. Common destination of domestic helpers were Jordan, Syria, dubai; riyadh, Kuwait; Qatar, Abu dhabi, and dammam. others went to Jeddah, Al Gassim of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, egypt and, in a few cases, in London

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Chapter 6 Illegal Recruitment among IDPs that has led to human trafficking

iF ThereS one iMPorTAnT bonuS wished for by Filipino Muslims recruited for domestic jobs abroad, it was the rare chance of a lifetime to go on pilgrimage to the holy City of Mecca in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, a chance of fulfilling one of the five pillars of islam.
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Getting there in Mecca automatically accords a pilgrim the elevated status in the Moro communities as a hajja or hajji. besides, working in the Middle east would have meant working with fellow Muslims and would not be much of a cultural and religious problem. Such was how a 35-year-old domestic help from datu Saudi town of Maguindanao, felt when she worked in Medina, near Mecca. but because her visit to Mecaa was not during the time of official pilgrimage for Muslims, she would be accorded the title of an ombra, or a prelude to being an Al haj. even being an ombra would bring a little privilege though, that of being treated quite well by her Arab employer. but other than that, she found out that she would be experiencing the common travails of young Muslims forced to take on the jobs of adults in a foreign land. And because, like all the rest of the minors from Moro Muslim communities forced to work abroad, their little education, lack of technical skill and inadequate preparation would have far and serious consequences in the treatment by their employers, including in the noncompliance of the provision of the contract, mainly on salary. Several Muslim women here, especially the minors, found themselves battered by the same persons that they previously hoped could have shown piety and compassion as taught in the islams holy book, the Quran. From the experiences of those who responded to the survey, it turned out that trafficking essentially reared its ugly head right at the start when they were sweet-talked into deciding to agree to recruiters to apply for jobs abroad, buoyed up by the promise of financial deliverance for their families in the evacuation centers. With nothing to brandish about a good education and technical skill, the recruited residents were easily made to agree with the terms of the contract that often turned very much in favor of the recruiter and the recruitment agency. These agencies would be collecting hefty profits even before the applicant has left for Manila for her or his departure to another country.
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And even way into the next three months, she or he would work to pay the arrears to the recruiter and the agency. in most cases, the agencies were more blatant in taking advantage of the recruited oFW, extending their take to five months worth of the wages of the recruits. The recruiter usually gets the one-month equivalent of a three-month payment term, or two months of a five-month payment. Salary was almost fixed at $200 per month, or its equivalent monetary unit of the host country. That means that not less than $900 would have been taken away from the domestic help in the entire two-year contract, from these deductions alone. estimates placed this amount at 40 percent of the total wage to be received in two years time. in some instances, the amount would be changed, usually lower, according to nop P. usok, the barangay captain of Macacendig, datu Piang in Maguindanao. Those relatives that he recruited told him that they were receiving $125 or even $100. That happened in Jordan, he said. Crisostomo of the oWWA-ArMM confirmed that a recruitment agency usually charged the migrant worker with a certain fee as a common practice. but according to her, an agency usually charged an equivalent of two months salary to be deducted when the worker would start receiving the salary. This was supposed to cover for the expenses on medical examination, processing of passport, clearances and other documentary requirement, including a pre-departure orientation seminar (Pdo) and the accommodation expenses in Manila while processing the papers. Cases of unpaid salaries reached as high as three years, even in Kuwait where Arab families were pampered by government subsidy. in this oil-rich country, a family of four could claim more than $3,000 subsidy per month. even with this huge allotment, the lavish and consumerist lifestyle of Kuwaitis made their incomes insufficient. Kuwaitis were fond of acquiring new model of cars and branded goods that often left nothing to pay for the hired domestic help.
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in some cases, the wife of the employer would borrow from the domestic help when she found out that her husband just paid her the salary. The wife usually spent the borrowed money on parlors and boutiques, in many cases of which the wifes debt often went unpaid. it would not be Muslim girls and women in Central Mindanao evacuation camps who got duped. The study also found cases of faked entries in the passport from victims who were Christian applicants, but who were also evacuees. one case was about three nurses and three midwives from iligan City, Lanao del norte, who were recruited by a former teacher in the city. They were brought to Marikina City and they were asked to defray the expenses in processing their papers. First they asked P2,000. but we began to suspect that something was not going right because weve been there in the house for two weeks and we were not asked to submit for medical examination, nbi clearance, one nurse victim said. We ran away by scaling over the fence. They applied in another agency, and they were asked to give P12,000 because the Arab recruiter would be coming. one of them said she decided to convert into a Muslim out of convenience to help me get out quick. She was told from someone in the recruitment agency that for Christians, overseas work in the Middle east would require them to be at least 25 years old, for Muslims, to be only 21. So i took a quick course on islam for only two months. its really difficult to memorize their prayer. She said she had to memorize the daily prayer of the Muslims because who knows, i might be asked to recite their prayer. She was sent to a secluded hospital in Saudi Arabia and became homesick that she later confessed to her employer that she was not a really a Muslim so that he would allow me to go home the next day. her employer tested her by asking her to select on which color of the attire was usually common among Arabs. When she chose
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the wrong color, her employer nodded believed on her claim but took her still because i was honest. but for other contract workers, the ways to earn more has broadened options, including hooking up an Arab bachelor for marriage. its all for money. unfortunately, the rich Arabs would not even look at us. Thats why some of the [Filipina women] would be doing some sidelines there [with the Arabs], including those who were already married, she said. They would earn extra, maybe about $200. i dont know. Sometimes, Filipinas in Saudi Arabia would allow Arab venders in the market to touch our hands so that we would be given apples or oranges in exchange. She said that touching the hand of the women in that country would be sexually arousing for the Arab males who were used to seeing their women fully clothed, their faces even covered. The work conditions in the employers home were also made difficult by the strict restrictions of the employer. They were not allowed to smile at their male employer. They were also prohibited to talk with any men whether employer, driver or stranger. Some were restricted to eat food and take a bath before doing the household chores. At worst, some would be famished and the only remedy was for them to steal food from the refrigerator. When the domestic help would decide to run away from her employer, she usually sought refuge at the half-way centers maintained by the Philippine overseas Labor office (PoLo). runaways housed at the center could only get out of the cramped center in four ways: if she reconciled with her employer, if she transfered to a new employer, if her case was ironed out or if she was endorsed to the Saudi Arabian jail to clear her papers. endorsing a Filipina worker to the Saudi Arabian prison was usually the last resort, according to Crisostomo. runaway Filipina workers would also have to watch out for some taxi drivers who may be working for the syndicates victimizing foreign workers. There were lots of taxi drivers who are members of a syndicate victimizing migrant women. once you will be caught by them you
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will be sold to the casa or prostitution house. rescue on a casa was difficult as raid could only be conducted if somebody would give a tip that there was a Filipina inside. respondents coming from Cotabato and Maguindanao knew of former migrant workers who came home insane, fractured, or who fell ill. They also reported of others who remained imprisoned abroad. in the monitoring done by the oWWA in the ArMM, the problems that usually confronted the migrant workers were failure to claim their wages and to communicate with their families for more than two years. The agency listed 15 welfare cases for migrant workers.
2008 NATURE OF CASES 1. Whereabouts 2. Stranded/ Overstayed 3. Unpaid Salaries 4. Maltreatment 5. Imprisonment 6. Runaway 7. Repatriation 8. Non-Remittance 9. Money/Properties Claims 10. Death/DA Benefits 11. Excessive Workloads 12. Disabled/M.I 13. Financial Support 14. Illegal Recruitment 15. Rape NO. OF CASES 239 53 50 39 25 22 35 25 14 8 15 6 5 4 0 540 Source: OWWA ARMM, May 2010 44.26 9.81 9.26 7.22 4.63 4.07 6.48 4.63 2.59 1.48 2.78 1.11 0.93 0.74 0.00 100.00 % 2009 NO. OF CASES 154 73 40 45 49 22 7 7 12 16 9 10 3 2 1 450 34.22 16.22 8.89 10.00 10.89 4.89 1.56 1.56 2.67 3.56 2.00 2.22 0.67 0.44 0.22 100.00 393 126 90 84 74 44 42 32 26 24 24 16 8 6 1 990 39.70 12.73 9.09 8.48 7.47 4.44 4.24 3.23 2.63 2.42 2.42 1.62 0.81 0.61 0.10 100.00 % TOTAL CASES %

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The problem on locating the whereabouts of migrant workers topped all the cases, and posted about 40 percent of all the 15 cases. According to Crisostomo, this was manifested by the absence of communication and arbitrary discontinuity of the remittance of salary. rape was the least of the cases filed with only 0.01 percent. however, those migrant workers who have returned, when asked if they heard somebody having been raped, all answered in affirmative.

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Chapter 6 Women Migrant Workers among the Displaced: Profiles

reCruiTMenT For overSeAS JobS hAS become a profitable trade in the Philippines since overseas contract was encouraged at the time of former President Ferdinand Marcos. by 2007, the Philippines was among the top five recipient countries of foreign remittances, according to the World bank annual publication, Migration and remittances Factbook of 2008.
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The country reported $12.5 billion in remittances, an amount behind india, China and Mexico. The Philippines and France shared the fourth spot. A separate assessement by the World bank, in its east Asia update in 2008, also said that notwithstanding this performance, the economy continued to show persistent structural weaknesses - a low tax effort, high unemployment and underemployment, and rising poverty. Many of the countrys poorest provinces are found in the central and southwestern regions of Mindanao, which have become also the scene of sporadic battles between government troops and the guerillas of the Moro islamic Liberation Front. in between these gunbattles were hundreds of thousands of individuals who evacuated from their homes, and leaving their only link to livelihood in the farms and their livestock. With their source of livelihood severely cut for indefinite and long periods, the families were left to the welfare agencies, and became vulnerable to the offers of recruitment agencies, including those who operate illegally. The account of nop P. usok, the barangay captain of Macacendig, datu Piang in Maguindanao, would indicate the extent of recruitment going on in these evacuation centers. he alone, for example, could already account for about 30 persons, all were his relatives in the different evacuation centers, during the last five years. While it appeared that his recruits were fortunate enough to have a relative with a sense of advocacy to prevent them from falling into the wrong hands, some about four or five eventually fell into some forms of maltreatment or abuse. no government and nongovernment institution had kept tract, however, of the recruitment activities of other placement agencies inside these evacuation camps, but they agreed that these have been going on for several years already. The ecoWeb said it has heard on several occasion in the evacuation centers about the recruitment for overseas work but it could not trace the whereabouts of the recruits because it has not formed a monitoring unit.
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Women IDPs who became migrant workers

Melan Tumbi, was born on August 2, 1972 and has resided in Sitio Pagatin, a poblacion barangay in Datu Salibo town in Maguindanao, and got married there at 22 years old. She reached college, taking up Bachelor of Science in Forestry at the Mindanao State University campus in Maguindanao. She stopped though, with one more year to complete the course due to financial constraint. When the battles erupted sporadically in the year 2000 and onward, evacuation has become the way of life for many residents of Pagatin. Her two brothers had been supportive financially, sending P1,500 every month because they were the ones who finished school. Both of them lived and worked in Cotabato City. Life turned more difficult at the evacuation center in Sitio Gadong where they moved, and her mother transferred to Cotabato City. They closed their sari-sari, or retail, store. Their four cows in the farm were all gone, shot by soldiers. Their goats were also gone. Her house was also burned by soldiers. Her husband had no job and they only gather firewood in the mountain to sell at the evacuation center. They had two children that time, the eldest was 15 and the youngest was 5, when her cousin in Manila called her up to file an application for work abroad. Her cousin worked at Shanlyn Manpower, a job placement agency based in Quezon City. I went there when she sent me money, and I found out that I already had a passport made when I left my place, Tumbi told an interview. She said the passport entries were all in order. She stayed for three months in Manila before she left on September 9, 2006 for Damam, Jordan. The agreement with the agency was for her to pay the placement agency three months worth of her salary, the one month of it going to the recruiter, her cousin. When she arrived in Jordan, the wife of her employer had only delivered a baby, the couples only child and about one month and 10 days later, the baby died in the hospital. I was the only one in the hospital that time, and when they knew that the baby died, my employer hit me in the head, accusing me that I killed the baby, she narrated. She heard that the baby died due to a weak pulse. Since then she was repeatedly mauled by the wife, usually hit in the head, and she would threw hard objects on her. The husband would just look at her wife.

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One time, she fell unconscious and was brought to the hospital by the father of the wife. When she woke up, she protested that she was innocent and could not do such thing because she also had children back home. After five days, she was taken home by the father of her employer. After about two months, her employer would visit the fathers house and she would seek her out to hit her again and again. It was then that the father sent her back home to the Philippines, paying for her transportation and her four months salary. She was being paid $200. The father also paid the Philippine placement agency. I felt happy, at the same time, I felt sad, she said, because I was supposed to work there so that I can send my children to school. I never expected it to be cut short. I was dreaming of a bright future for my children, only to go back home penniless. Tumbi used the four months of her salary to put up a sari-sari store inside the evacuation center where her family still sought temporary shelter. But it was also used up, including the capital money, after one year because it was used to sustain their stay in the evacuation center, some borrowed by relatives and were not paid anymore. But she was still willing to go out again as a migrant worker, just to let my children finish school. My girl is already in 3rd year high school in Cotabato City. She would prefer to work in Kuwait because I have many relatives working there also.

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Returning women migrant workers who became displaced

Warda Antao, 24, of Makir, Sinsuat, Maguindanao, had worked as domestic help in Dubai, United Arab Emirates for two years since 2005, and in Jordan for a second two-year contract. In Dubai, she worked in a household with an extended family and would also shuttle from one house to another relative of her employer, which she said would usually demand that she also did some household chores. She described it as very tiresome, taking her time away for the needed rest. She was able to finish the contract though. While she had to take care of only an elderly woman in her second job in Jordan, she eventually gave up because I could not take a rest, almost every moment she would wake up. She later called up her agency to call it quits, but she was eventually returned to her employer. The daughter of the elderly woman conceded however, and passed Antao on to another employer. But I only worked for ten months, because during the last three months my employer did not give me my salary anymore, she said. Getting her salary was not an easy affair too. When I tried to ask for my salary during the previous four months, my employer became angry and slapped me. I was hurt several times because I also kept asking for my salary and I told her that I have to send it to my family in the evacuation center, she said. She asked help from her agency who also facilitated her request. She left her place in Maguindanao because only her husband had work, but the income of a driver of about P250 a day would not suffice for the couple, who had to support her mother-in-law, a nephew and a niece, and the sister of her husband. They had lived with them since they evacuated in the town center of Datu Saudi, Maguindanao. The family transferred to another evacuation center in Makir, Sinsuat town, while she was in Jordan. Antao finished only 2nd year high school. She would recall that she was passed on to different employers, but it was in Dubai that she had to work even for the relatives of her employer. She was paid the equivalent of $200 a month.

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In Jordan, she work first as a caregiver to an old woman and said she had to wake up at wee hours of the night because she would wake up every now and then. She abandoned the house after six weeks. The partner job placement agency in Jordan, the Al Masa, called her up and turned her over to the daughter of the old woman. The daughter however, turned her over to another employer and worked there for the next ten months. I also quit because I was not given my salary anymore during the last three months, she said. She stayed in the embassy for almost one year, or for the entire duration of her second contract. The embassy sent her home later. She said some of the runaway and stranded migrant workers were brought back to the Philippines through the help of Sen. Manuel Villar. She arrived in Manila on March 15, 2009 and got her plane ticket from her husband for her trip back to Maguindanao. The recruitment agency in the Philippines did not deduct anymore from her salary when she was in Jordan because it already deducted six months worth of her salary when she was in Dubai. She was back in the evacuation center in Makir.

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Chapter 8 Conclusion and Recommendation

iLLeGAL reCruiTMenT oF PerSonS hAve become pervasive in areas where there are large concentration of people for a longer period of time, such as in an evacuation center, which also provides a dense human foliage to cover its tracts from authorities.
This situation also works best for illegal recruiters: they do not have to move around and spend too much to spot a big number of prospects, and therefore, with only one or a few sweep, also do not leave too much footprint for tracking. nowhere else are recruiters been found to be doing a more skillful job and at a quicker pace involving far greater number of persons than during emergency situations such as a natural calamity as well as a man-made disaster, such as an armed conflict. This kind of recruitment also opened up the avenue to continuous or large-scale trafficking of persons, across national and regional boundaries. brenda Albarico, who worked for the bantay Ceasefire that monitors early signs of conflict that usually trigger evacuations, had been a witness to recruitment activity by various individuals and groups after massive evacuation or after an occurrence of a natural calamity such as the flood. She said there were fewer cases of illegal recruitment reported to authorities because what happened was that the recruitment was undertaken by relatives and therefore they [the families] are usually silent about this.
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Myra Alih. Amy Crisostomo , the oiC-regional Secretary of the oWWA-ArMM and who is also the regional Secretary of the department of Labor and employment in the Autonomous region of Muslim Mindanao (doLe-ArMM), said recruiters swarm the evacuation centers because it is more efficient to recruit in a group compared to going house-to-house. in one instance they can capture a lot of recruits. According to Antiquisa of ecoWeb, it is during evacuation that younger men and women become highly vulnerable to recruiter. As the most able in the family, they are the ones who sacrifice to face uncertain lives with the recruiters, illegal or otherwise, to save the family from hunger, she said. This posed a challenge to authorities to prevent groups with sinister plans to capitalize on the disorientation and trauma in the evacuation centers to traffic persons in much grander scale than recruiters could normally get. The decision to go abroad and earn a few hundred dollars, even with full knowledge that they carry tampered travel documents appears to be much more urgent and compelling than concern for safety and security in the destination country. having a daughter working as dhW abroad usually through tampered documents is an insurance for hunger, without which they have all died with an empty stomach. The money earned abroad is a major reason why the idPs had survived the long-running conflict, Albarico said. Crisostomo has this to say about the repeated cases of abuses:
This is brought about by average of 18 hours straight work on normal days and even on Ramadhan. Arabians seemed like nocturnal beings, alive at night and asleep at daytime. The household service worker had to wait for their employer/s who returned home usually at 3:00 in the morning and who would wake-up the earliest at 10:00 in the morning. The Moro women also went abroad unaware that the household they would be working with was different from our common notion of a house. In the Philippines, the average biggest house was up to second floor and seldom do have cars. It was totally

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a different thing in the Middle East. One household for example had up to 7th floors. Each floor was being occupied by the family of each child. Each family owned a car which the DHW had to clean. Car washing in the Middle East required not just ordinary wiping but thorough cleaning. This was a clear case of overworked. While washing the car, one was concurrently exposed to extreme sunlight which expectedly could cause illnesses to DHW. In paper, the Muslim DHW was contracted by only one employer in the Middle East. In reality, she had to serve multiple employers. Culture shock was another factor. While Filipinos have been observing courtesy, using please when requesting for something, the Arabians are used to shouting. Shouting has been their mood of communication even inside their homes. They considered themselves superior. If an order was not properly executed concomitantly hitting or spitting by any of the man or woman employer would follow. Spitting at DHW was part of their culture. Those who could not quickly adapt to the situation would lose their mental balance and return home, insane.

According to the Moro migrant workers working as domestic helps, most Middle east women employers were prone to anger and tended to met-out outright punishment in simple mistakes committed by the dhW. Crisostomo affirmed that Middle-east women were worst in terms of mishandling temper. being migrant worker also meant mixed emotions. it brought happiness and sorrow. happy as they were able to help their family. Sad, since they left their children and family behind. Migration among idPs is mainly focused on providing the immediate needs of food and habitable living spaces for families that are left behind. Therefore, a successful venture abroad is often seen as successful foray of the family to fight poverty, which is the scourge of many provinces and villages affected by the armed conflict. Any supporting moves from all sectors neighbors, village and national government, the police and the military, the media would also be all contributions of society to ensure the well being of families, both for the migrant worker and the family left behind in the evacuation camps.

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The resources sent home from a successful work abroad would ensure this well-being and restore somehow, the family fabric that was torn by war. A restored family unity and economic security would also be expected to radiate to the community and may put back the stakes of a stable and durable peace that has eluded the dreams of many. To arrest the trafficking of persons and to lick the problem right at the evacuation centers, the following are recommended by the respondents: Cash assistance. Migrant workers, mostly victims of illegal recruitment or running away from the claws of traffickers, do not have the money for their daily sustenance in a foreign country and only live in cramped and unsanitary conditions of half-way centers or spaces in the embassy. For the victims and their families back home, each day that a migrant worker is not sent home is a trying time, emotionally and psychologically, and only aggravates further whatever emotional fabric has remained of a family surviving in the evacuation and hoping for the return home of their migrant worker. They are usually at the mercy of those in power and only a hair strand away from the reach of foreign and Filipino syndicates prowling at their haplessness and helplessness, to get them back to their abusive employers. Thus the most immediate assistance often lie in cash assistance that would be mainly used to repatriate these runaway or victimized migrant workers. Improve conditions of shelter homes or half-way centers. The cramped conditions of embassies and half-way centers, especially in the Middle east, would attest to the sheer number of illegally recruited migrant workers.

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And the common complaints that living conditions in these centers were bad and unfit for human living have lead to comments that these centers appear more as prison camps than shelter homes. As persons are supposed to entitle to basic human right to shelter, health and safety, government ought to improve the living condition in these spaces and to provide, at the very least, the minimum services and provisions of a shelter home for these migrant workers. Extend legal, trauma and therapy assistance. The battery commonly experienced by victims of abuse and maltreatment poses serious physical and psychological dent on migrant workers, many victims of whom are minors and young girls. They have been sent, or sneaked to a foreign country under faked and false travel documents, not to help them but to fatten the pockets of illegal recruitment groups. Legal assistance would go to fend off false and trumped-up accusations filed by abusive employers and corrupt government agency personnel of the host country, and including Filipino consular officers. Traumatized by abuse, these migrant workers need immediate counseling and therapeutic sessions to restore their psyche back to being productive members of society. These therapeutic and counseling treatments may also be provided to family members or relatives who may have been affected by the travails of migrant workers. Educate evacuees on illegal recruitment, trafficking. Government and / or civil society organizations must conduct extensive education among the evacuees in their temporary shelters about illegal recruitment, migration, trafficking, how recruiters operate, and to impart the painful experiences of migrant workers. education should also center on guarding each other from falling prey to illegal recruiters and to expose them wherever they are found.

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Establish a program or a structural setup. The idPs must be organized in the evacuation camps to ensure, among others that there is a dedicated monitoring against illegal recruitment and to provide adequate support system or mechanism to families to evaluate and decide on critical issues such as sending their children or other relatives to domestic and overseas jobs. Government must ensure that this organizational setup or program is being followed and observed in all evacuation camps. Formal education. The long term solution appears to center largely on demands to increase access to formal education to the children and youth in the communities. The lack of it has been reflected in the high level of their vulnerability to the offer of illegal recruiters and in the inability of many families to scrutinize and weigh the consequences of their decision to send their children to work places abroad. Third World countries like the Philippines continue to struggle with high rural poverty that is caused by, or result to, lack of education, forcing them to continue the vicious cycle. unfortunately, it is also in the rural areas where more than half of the population is also found. Livelihood. Migrant workers, especially those victimized by illegal recruitment and trafficking, may be helped with a livelihood activity to shield them from repeated temptation by illegal recruiters. Livelihood assistance could range from providing the needed tools, equipment and machines such as sewing machines and tricycles to carpentry tools and automotive repair gadgets, from providing a package of seed money, skills and technical assistance for weaving and other handicraft and vegetable or crop-vending activities to food packaging and processing.

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Bibliography
Asis, Maruja M.b. 2005. understanding international Migration in Asia. exodus Series 1. A resource Guide for the Migrant Ministry in Asia. Scalabrini Migration Center, Quezon City, Philippines. historical background bartunkova, iveta. 2006. Trafficking in women forced labor and domestic work in the context of the Middle east and Gulf region. retrieved 8 July 2010, at http://www.gtz.de/de/dokumente/en-svbf-studyMiddle-East.pdf battistella, Graziano , 2005. The human rights of Migrants. exudos Series 11. Scalabrini Migration Center, Quezon City Philippines pages 1-2; 16; 24-25; and 26. datu Piang MdCC, 2008. eMoiC ForM no. 4 (Casualties). List of Casualties datu Piang MdCC, 2009. Progress reports of idPs as of January 9, 2009. datu Piang Socio-economi Profile n.d. diestro, eduardo J. May 27,2009. Master;list of idPs from brgy reina regente. diestro, eduardo J. Situation of the internally displace Persons (idPs) in datu Piang Municipality, Maduindanao Province, region ArMM. Cabarihan, Magdalena C. and Fernandez, ederlinda M. hALAW The travails of Filipino deportees from Malaysia. 2005 p. 5 eleazar, Alma A., robert n. Aplacador and Mary Grace M. brongcano (n.d.). The role of Women in Conflict and Post Situations: Keeping the Family Whole p. 65-66.

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international Catholic Migration Commission, 2008. dignity Across borders-Cases and recommendations regarding Migrants and their families in the Age of Mobility. Johnson, Mark and Claudia Liedbelt, deirdre Mackay, Alicia Pingol and Pnina Werbner (n.d.). Sacred Journeys, diasporic Lives: Sociality and the religious imagination among Filipinos in the Middle east. retrieved 16 July 2010 http://www3.surrey.ac.uk/ Arts/CroneM/CroneM-papers09/Werbner-Johnson.pdf Martin, Susan. 2009b. internal Trafficking. Accessed at: www.fmreview. org. Martin, Susan Forbes and Amber Callaway. 2009a. Women, conflict and trafficking: Towards a stronger narrative framework for protection.:. in Women, migration and conflict: breaking a deadly cycle. London and new york: Springer. Meissner, Kathrin. The importance of Womens organization in the Context of Migration p. 6 Kaagapay concerns . october-november 2002 (check format for magazine) Mokamad, datukan, S.(2009a). Progress report regarding the return of idPs in their Place of origin as of February 3, 2009 Mokamad, datukan, (2009b) . Progress report of incidents at barangay butilen, dAtu Piang Maguindanao. March 03, 2009 The Mindanao Commission on Women, 2004. The State of the Women of Mindanao report 2004 executive Summary. Tambara. Ateneo de davao uniersity Journal vol. 21. (p.145-146) Turton, david, (2003). Conceptualizing forced Migration. rSC Working Paper no. 12. Queen elizabeth house. international development Center. unversity of oxford. retrieved March 26, 2010 from http://www.rsc.ox.ac.uk/PdFs/Working Paper.pdf. united nations development Fund for Women (uniFeM). 2005. Good Practice to Protect Women Migrant Workers. high Level Government Meeting of Countries of employment. Co-hosted by Ministry of Labor, royal Thai Government and united nations development Fund for Women (uniFeM), east and South east Asia.

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