Jean Enriquez
ABSTRACT
Significant increase in trafficking for prostitution and other forms of sexual
exploitation has been documented by the Coalition Against Trafficking in
Women – Asia Pacific (CATW-AP) in the last five years (since 2016), even as a
more systematic and pro-active documentation was started nine months ago,
in June 2021.
In a project on online sexual exploitation and abuse with the United Nations
Population Fund (UNFPA) – Philippines, CATW-AP and partner survivor groups
brought their services online. Sex trafficking survivors, including CATW-AP
staff/consultant, took the role of peer facilitators of thirty (30) support groups.
With the lockdowns imposed in relation to the Covid19 pandemic, abusers
contacted women and girls for sexual exploitation via information and
communications technology.
Victims-survivors of sex trafficking were disproportionately women and girls,
while perpetrators were men, the profile of some were included in the
research. The majority of victims-survivors of online trafficking were young
women aged 15-24, and among these ___ were adult women.
The support groups also documented the interventions within comprehensive
case management, as well as the limitations in services from government, as
mandated by the anti-trafficking law, Magna Carta of Women and
international standards.
Utilizing the standardized form from the Inter-Agency Council on Violence
against Women and Children (IACVAWC), the support group facilitators also
systematized the data in a logsheet/tool developed by CATW-AP. Case
summaries prepared by the survivor case managers and validated by the
survivor, a registered social worker and CATW-AP, were bases of the data.
Trafficking Data as Gender Statistics: Framework
The study uses the United Nations framework on trafficking and sexual exploitation,
including the 1949 Convention on the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the
Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others, the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of
Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the 2000 Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish
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