By GERMELINA A. LACORTE | Davao Today
Former Regional Trial Court Judge Adoracion Avisado and City Councilor Angela Librado urged Mayor Rodrigo Duterte to take a strong stance in the fight against sex trafficking.
In a city peace and order meeting here, Librado prodded Duterte to look into the live shows proliferating in the city, saying they could be a front for prostitution of minors and sex trafficking.
Librado alerted Duterte of the numerous complaints she received over the proliferation of establishments, featuring live shows in the city.
She said that one of the establishments, where young women dance naked at 12 midnight, is located across the Assumption Church on F. Torres street, scandalizing some devout people.
“As long as the one performing the shows are adults and the one watching them are adults 50-years-old and above, I really don’t have anything against them,” Duterte said, “I could not be a Puritan, and this is a democratic country.”
But Avisado, also a womens rights advocate, complained that five years after Republic Act No. 9208, or the anti-trafficking in persons act took effect in the country, conviction for sex trafficking has been very slow.
“In Davao, we only have one conviction in five years and that is not a very good picture,” former RTC Judge Adoracion Avisado said in a recent city peace and order (CPOC) meeting here. “In the entire country, we only have 12 cases of conviction. One of the convictions involved a pregnant woman because illegal syndicates are using women to convince unsuspecting victims, but in the end, it’s also the women who easily get caught.”
“Without depriving 50 and above of enjoying such things in the privacy of their own homes, and especially, when these involves young women who might have been victims, we should find a way to help them,” Avisado said.
She urged Duterte to give enough support to the police to build up cases of sex trafficking to get into the masterminds behind sex trafficking syndicates.
Avisado also explained that under the anti trafficking in persons law, police could no longer arrest prostituted women. “The arrests will focus on the pimps and ruffians, and people behind the prostitution dens. We don’t have to worry because the woman could no longer be charged in Court,” she said.
Duterte said that aside from his all out campaign against drugs, he will not tolerate the abuse of minors in the city. “We are interested in protecting our women,” Duterte said, “When they start bringing them out of the country, they’re not only pushed into prostitution but they may also suffer physical violence and abuse, it’s like making them slaves.”
But Avisado said illegal syndicates are also using women in recruiting potential victims. Some women join the illegal recruitment syndicates because they don’t know the law but at the same time, they’re also the one who are easily caught. What we want to do is to build up cases that will really point to the mastermind. Police should be given enough support to build up the case and go after the syndicates behind the illegal trafficking, she said. (Germelina Lacorte/davaotoday.com)
