By Rose B. Palacio

Davao City (1 February) -- Human trafficking is a major crime with penalties of up to life imprisonment and P5-million in fines.

Former Judge Adoracion Cruz-Avisado said trafficking involves life recruitment, transport, transfer, and harboring of persons by threat, force or coercion or abduction, fraud or deception for exploitation.

In a forum held at the training center of the Davao City Water District (DCWD) at Madapo hills, Davao City sponsored by Womynet group through its executive director Sis Jo Bacaltos in coordination with the DCWD, Judge Avisado said the most prevalent forms of sex trafficking are prostitution, sex tourism, and mail order brides including bonded labor and domestic work.

In a 2000 comparative study on women trafficked through migration, the United Nation stated that an estimated four million women were trafficked from one country to another and within countries.

Child sexual exploitation is growing "exponentially" with researches showing that some travel agencies, and child protectors are also involved in sex tourism or play a part in "organized sex tours."

Avisado called for measures to prevent human trafficking to protect the victims and to prosecute traffickers and buyers.

She said no government policy should promote prostitution, whether through legalization or decriminalization of the sex industry, or through the acceptance of mail-order bride businesses or sex tourism enterprises.

She also called on governments to eliminate structural factors that push women into trafficking networks such as poverty and gender discrimination.

At the same time, Avisado said economic policies that marginalize women or discriminate against them in public employment, for example, should be abolished.

The government should also support effective public education and awareness raising campaigns on trafficking while promoting the replication of best practices that are gender-sensitive and women-oriented, she said.