Ten years of World Trade Organization policies on agriculture, non-agricultural sector and services have resulted in massive impoverishment of women. This impoverishment aggravated at least two phenomena: feminization of migration and sex trafficking.

In the Philippines alone, at least 74% of 2,000 Filipinos that leave the country daily are women. Trafficked persons around the world is estimated at 800,000 yearly, 80% of whom are women from developing countries. In the developing world, the women who are trafficked lament of landlessness or lack of employment, or miserably low wages or violence against women, as conditions they leave so that they risk their lives elsewhere. WTO has literally wiped out any source of livelihood left in home countries.

The deepening capitalist consciousness, manifested not only in material relations but in treatment of human beings, worsens commodification of people. Under GATS Mode 4, or ‘movement of natural persons,’ skilled workers will not be considered as workers, they are without rights.

This ideology of commodification of life also forces on us to accept that women are objects to be bought and sold. Given the demand in the sex industries of many developed countries, capitalists in the sex trade ensure the steady supply of women and children from impoverished countries. Meanwhile, male buyers of prostitution sex continue to demand for cheaper and a wider variety of supply. Prostitution of women then is being normalized and legalized in developed countries like Australia and countries in the European Community, as the industry generate huge earning for their governments, too.

Liberalization of tourism is also part of the agenda in the WTO GATS, as part of Mode 2 (‘consumption abroad’). Liberalized investments in tourism contributes to a loss of jobs in traditional sectors as fishing and agriculture. Exploitation of women and children is widespread in tourist destinations as low-paid workers, hired in precarious jobs. Women also receive 30% less than their male colleagues in comparable jobs. Worse, they are used in the marketing approaches by tour operators, many traffickers use the women in developing countries as come-on and products to be sold or “part of the destinations to be visited.” Sex tourism and prostitution has become investment opportunities for capitalists abroad.

Liberalization of services are being rammed down our throats, even as both developed and developing countries have not conducted impact studies of suc policies, and despite histories of neglect and abuse of the environment, indigenous peoples, women, children and workers in the process and as a result of.

Militarism is also an important function of globalization and the former creates the demand for trafficked women and children. The wars waged by US and the Coalition forces in Afghanistan and Iraq are important for their economic interests. Military presence in many countries in the South created a demand for prostitution. In South Korea alone, prostitution increased with the presence of American forces.

Fighting against sexual exploitation makes it imperative for feminists to reject the notion of prostitution as sex work, becasue prostitution is exploitation that is at the crux of capitalist exchange and patriarchal practice and belief that men have the right to buy women. It is imperative for us to struggle for an elaternative economic system and trade justice — towards alternative lives for women and not give up on prostitution as “sex work” or the end point of our lives that only needs to be reformed.

Alongside survivors of prostitution, we continue to resist impoverishment and globalization. We continue to resist patriarchal conditioning and systems. We call for women to be protected, while punishing the owners of prostitution establishments.

Prostitution is violence against women. Women are not for sale. Junk the WTO!

Starting peacefully at around 3 in the afternoon at Victoria Park in Hong Kong, the march of thousands of farmers, workers, women and migrants ended in violence at around 9:30 last night, a few meters away from the Hong Kong Convention Center where the 6th Ministerial Meeting of the World Trade Organization is being held. Riot police fired water cannons and threw tear gas cannisters at the marchers at different points, breaking their lines. When the marchers made it close to the Convention Center, more tear gas exploded and rubber bullets were fired pointblank at the Korean farmers on the frontlines.

Walden Bello, Director of the Focus on the Global South, and Josua Mata, Secretary-General of the Alliance of Progressive Labor (APL), were also on the frontlines and were pepper-sprayed. However, they marched on in what was dubbed as the funeral march for the WTO, led by Via Campesina, the biggest international coalition of peasants.

“The international mass movement delivered a strong message against the WTO! Through the discipline and determination of Korean farmers, students and workers, we managed to breach several police blockades,” stated Mata.

Hong Kong people lined up along the route and gave food, water and even handed flowers. They cheered and chanted “down, down WTO!” The police guarding the convention panicked and used rubber bullets. Arrests of at least 71 protesters were made, among them Filipinos.

Filipino women from the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women – Asia Pacific (CATW-AP) and Kanlungan were also part of the protests. “While we choked from the tear gas, none of us were hurt,” reported Jean Enriquez, Deputy Director of CATW-AP. Enriquez mentioned that they united with the farmers and workers in protesting the WTO as it caused the impoverishment of women and outmigration of thousands of Filipinas for precarious jobs. The groups also lobbied the official delegation for the rejection of Annex C of the Ministerial text that contains provisions for the liberalization of services, including energy and tourism. “Liberalization of tourism will spell loss of jobs in fishing and agriculture, and aggravate sexual exploitation of women in developing countries,” she added.

Dozens of Koreans suffered head injuries, however, yet sat in vigil in the streets of Wan Chai through the dawn. The arrests were brutal, according to Focus and CATW who witnessed the events. Some unionists were beaten up, they were strip-searched, and were not even allowed to go to the toilet.

As today is the last day of the negotiations, NGOs are reportedly banned from attending the closing ceremony. The Filipino groups, as part of the umbrella organization Our World is Not For Sale (OWINFS), condemned the brutal dispersal and demanded the immediate release of the protesters. “Release those fighting to save their livelihood from the WTO,” was the call from the OWINFS letter to Donald Tsang, Chair of the Ministerial Meeting and to Pascal Lamy, WTO Director General.

Migrant workers, under the banner of the Migrants Forum in Asia, will lead today’s marches to the Convention Center.

Zamboanga City in Southern Philippines distinguished itself today as the first city to have convicted a trafficker under Republic Act 9208 or the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Law of the Philippines. The decision comes at a time of growing frustration over the slow implementation of the law which was passed two years earlier. Although trafficking of women from Zamboanga and Butuan to Malaysia has been occurring for many years, this is the first time that it is seriously being addressed by a court of law.

Rosario was lured and deceived by a recruiter to take a boat from Zamboanga to Sandakan in Malaysia and then to Kota Kinabalu with a promise of a job in a restaurant. Upon arrival in Kota Kinabalu she was raped and prostituted from June 14 to June 18, 2004. While still traumatized , she had the presence of mind to call her sister by mobile phone and her Malaysian brother in law was able to rescue her.

Instead of being cowed, Rosario went to the police and reported her ordeal. The police immediately took action and laid out a strategy to entrap the traffickers. Rosario called the traffickers saying that she had two beautiful women with her whom they can bring to Malaysia . The plan worked and the accused Ronnie Aringoy was arrested and later arraigned with his co-accomplice Hadja Jarma Lalli , on September 9, 2005 at the Zamboanga Regional Trial Court.

Judge Jesus Carbon’s decision was based on a firm grasp and understanding of RA 9208 which asserts that ” the consent of a trafficked person to the intended exploitation is irrelevant and not a material fact that can be raised in a criminal prosecution. It will not exempt or mitigate the offender’s criminal liability ” citing Sec.3 (a) and Section 17 of RA 9208. He continued: “Traffickers in human beings and illegal recruiters prey on the vulnerability and gullibility of the weak and the underprivileged , “of poor laborers, seamen , domestics and other workers who use employment abroad as the only way out of their grinding poverty.”

This significant conviction maybe attributed to a number of factors which include among others– the timely education campaign in Zamboanga conducted by the Interagency Committe Against Trafficking , a GO-NGO partership tasked to monitopr the implementation of the law. Community-based partnerships and sustained education campaigns against sexual exploitation and trafficking of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women which had been going on for some years in the area also raised the awareness of people in Zamboanga City . Another important factor was the commitment and hard work of of the law enforcement team — City Prosecutor Ricardo Cabaron and the police officers Capatain Jesus Belarga and Senior Police Officer 1 Federico Lindo as well as the City Social Worker Kit Barredo who painstakingly gathered evidence against the traffickers.

Tribute must be accorded to the bravery and determination of Rosario, the trafficking victim in reporting her case and courageously facing the traffickers in court.