View previous stories
	Concerns grow over human trafficking as financial crisis deepens by IRIN News Philippines   March 2009   Concerns are growing that the global economic slump, which is causing increased joblessness, could see an increase in human trafficking, said specialists.   Law enforcers, labour leaders and social workers fear the unemployed may become increasingly desperate, making them vulnerable to human traffickers. Most of the Filipinos being laid off are women working in the export sector, so there is concern they will be at particular risk.   "Along with a possible upsurge of criminality as joblessness and poverty spread, there could be a rise in cases of human trafficking," says lawyer Ferdinand Lavin, chief of the National Bureau of Investigations (NBI) Anti-Human Trafficking Division. "People will be more aggressive in finding jobs and human traffickers will take advantage of the situation."   "It is a valid fear," says Julius Cainglet, spokesman for the Federation of Free Workers. "We tell our recently displaced workers to upgrade their skills so they can find work again and not be victimised by human traffickers."   In 2007, the NBI dealt with 122 cases of human trafficking and in 2008, 130. Lavin says 90 percent of these were women who were victims of forced labour and exploitation.   There is no official government data on trafficking but Visayan Forum, a national NGO, said it had assisted 32,000 people since 2003, when the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act was made law.   The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), however, said it had assisted only 6,000 victims of trafficking since 2003. Many of them were minors forced in sex slavery both domestically and outside the country. The DSWD data did not include men.   Social worker Ruby Dumpit, head of the community-based service unit of the DSWD, said the majority of trafficking victims were women. "They would prefer to work abroad and in their desperation, are vulnerable to exploitation. Others look for [normal] jobs in urban areas but end up in brothels."   Dumpit says the growing joblessness also makes children vulnerable to trafficking as they are pressured to help boost the family income. Often, these minors find themselves being forced into pornography or prostitution, he says.   Denise, not her real name, was recently rescued by NBI operatives from a bar in Pasay City. Her parents were jobless and she was convinced by an unscrupulous job recruiter to leave her home province of Leyte ostensibly to work as a waitress in a restaurant in Metro Manila. She ended up working in the bar, younger than the 18 legal limit, and then was forced into prostitution. "I had to help my family since my parents have no work," she says. She is now undergoing counselling at a shelter for trafficked women.   The Institute for Labor Education and Research (EILER), a local NGO, says women are especially vulnerable to job loss and exploitation since the sectors heavily affected by the global slump principally employ women.   EILER executive director, Anna Leah Colina, said: "Women account for 80 percent of the workers in export processing zones." This does not include the contractual workers who have no security benefits.   The Philippines enacted the anti-trafficking in law 2003, but authorities have so far secured only 12 convictions. Dumpit says the low conviction rate is not expected to deter trafficking perpetrators. "And more jobless people means more potential victims for them."
	Food price fluctuation driven by financial speculation – UN report by UNCTAD / FAO   19 March 2009   Both the surging food prices from 2007 to 2008 and their subsequent drop in some areas are a result of large-scale speculation by financial investors, according to a new report by the United Nations trade body, which called for greater regulation to protect millions of poor people worldwide.   Increased transparency is needed in futures markets for vital commodities such as food, said the report by the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), which also stressed the importance of regulators having greater power to step in when speculation in futures drives up the price of food.   There have been speculative bubbles for certain commodities on some occasions, the publication, entitled “The Global Economic Crisis: Systemic Failures and Multilateral Remedies,” found.   It also said that speculation in housing, currencies and commodities led to a disconnect from the ‘real’ economy because appropriate prices could not be determined.   By the time these bubbles had burst, the current global economic crisis was inevitable, UNCTAD said.   The “herd” behaviour behind this kind of speculation went unregulated, the report stated, appealing for reforms of the international financial and monetary systems to allow for government intervention and international oversight.   It pegged greed as the reason for the severity of the current crisis, and said there should have been regulations and practical policies in place to anticipate short-sightedness.   Also to blame for the financial turmoil is the de-regulation, both within and between countries, the new publication said.   The “markets know best” approach failed to consider the possibility that markets can, in fact, fail, according to the report, which pointed out that existing economic risk indicators show low risk at the peak of the credit cycle, when risk levels are high.   Mar 2009   New UN online tool shows food prices in poor countries have yet to fall.   A new online database of staple food prices on national markets in 55 developing countries from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe shows that local prices have not fallen the way they have at the global level, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said today.   The “National Basic Food Prices Data and Analysis Tool,” developed by FAO as part of its response to high food prices, shows the prices of different food commodities in local currencies or dollars and local measurements as well as standard weights.   The interactive tool allows for price comparisons between domestic and international markets, between different markets in the same country, as well as between countries.   “While food prices have fallen internationally, as indicated by the FAO food price index, this tool shows that in developing countries they have not fallen very much, or at all,” said Liliana Balbi, a senior economist with FAO’s Global Information and Early Warning System.   “The easy-to-use database will be an invaluable source of information for policy and decision-makers in agricultural production and trade, development and also humanitarian work.”   FAO noted that a rise in food prices hits the poor the hardest given that the share of food in their total expenditures is much higher than that of wealthier populations. While food represents about 10-20 per cent of consumer spending in industrialised nations, it can be as much as 60-80 per cent in developing countries.   Depending on available funds, FAO plans to add new countries and series to the database, which has benefited from a financial contribution from Spain under the FAO Initiative on Soaring Food Prices.   According to the agency, nearly one billion people or 15 per cent of the world’s population are currently suffering from hunger and malnutrition. Visit the related web page
	View more stories