businessmirror.com.ph
- Category: Top News
- Published on Saturday, 03 November 2012 18:43
- Written by Estrella Torres
A UNITED Nations (UN)
expert on human trafficking will visit the Philippines for a
fact-finding mission this week amid increasing cases of trafficking of
Filipino women in war-torn Syria and other Arab countries.
UN Special Rapporteur
Joy Ngozi Ezeilo from November 5 to 9 will examine the situation of
trafficked persons and check on the government efforts to address the
lingering problem.
“I hope to hear and
learn views of trafficked persons and other stakeholders to ensure a
human rights-based approach to combat trafficking in persons, as part of
my mandate to promote the respect for the human rights of trafficked
persons,” Ezeilo said in a UN statement issued over the weekend.
The independent expert
was mandated by the UN Human Rights Council to advocate the prevention
of trafficking in persons in all its forms and to encourage measures to
uphold and protect the human rights of victims.
Ezeilo is also meeting
with government officials and civil-society organizations (CSOs) on
measures to combat all forms of human trafficking in the country. The UN
rights expert will hold an ocular visit on several ports in Manila and
Zamboanga that are being used as jump-off points of trafficked
Filipinos, mostly women and children, who end up as child prostitutes
and forced laborers in Malaysia.
The Visayan Forum
(VF), a non- government organization that assist victims of trafficking
of persons, estimates that around 200,000 Filipinos are being trafficked
every year. At the sidelines of her official visit, the special
rapporteur will also visit Cebu to meet with CSOs.
The UN special
rapporteur’s findings and recommendations will be presented in a report
at a forthcoming session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.
(Estrella Torres)
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