Fight against Human Trafficking

Due to the poor economic situation in slums and due to the ailing justice system in the Philippines, children and adolescents in particular are running a great risk of becoming victims of violence and human trafficking:

• physical or sexual violence
  • most frequently exerted by familiar and close people (e.g. father, stepfather, related men)
• abuse and exploitation
  • relatively new and rapidly growing commercial sexual exploitation via livestream pornography in the darknet
• prostitution

In order to escape the unbearable situation, many underage victims run away and then live unprotected in the streets. Here they are exposed to numerous further dangers:

• drop out of school
  • no more future opportunities and perspectives
• hunger
  • theft in order to survive
  • dealing for drug dealers
• more sexual abuse
  • human traffickers force or lure (with money or natural produce) into prostitution on the streets
• consumption of cheap drugs or solvent vapors made from glue in order to forget about the situation
  • permanent physical damage and cognitive impairments
• neglect
  • stigmatization by the society

The trauma of sexual abuse and sexual exploitation threatens the physical, mental, moral and social development, and can even be life-threatening. In close collaboration with authorities and other NGOs, we stand up for children/adolescents in need of protection:

• prevention work, e.g. Safer Kids and BRC (Building Resilient Communities)
• admission to the Zion Children Village with family-like care
• professional help to handle traumatic experiences (Alice Rose Clover-House)
• guidance and support towards prosecuting the offender, aiming at restorative justice
• cooperation with KASO (network whose members take legal action against sex offenders)

Mothers, too, become accomplices by covering up the offender because they are financially dependent on them, or by trading their children on the internet out of economic hardship. We offer them protection and help in the Ruth Kellenberger Safe House (women’s house).