The Asia Foundation (TAF) and the Center for Community Journalism and Development (CCJD) recently signed an agreement to undertake a two-year project on human trafficking. The project, Strengthening Community Media Capacity and Multi-Sector Strategies to Address Trafficking in Persons, aims to strengthen the capability of community journalists—the print and broadcast media in small towns and cities where the most vulnerable segments of the population are located—to expose and report on trafficking in persons. At the same time, it seeks to develop and strengthen community-level multi-sector and multi-stakeholder strategies to address human trafficking issues discussed in the stories produced by journalists.

The project also intends to:

* Raise the knowledge and awareness of community journalists of the phenomenon of human trafficking. At the same time, it will enhance the reporting and writing skills of community journalists to enable them to produce compelling stories on human trafficking
* Train journalists on how to protect themselves in the course of coverage because human trafficking is often the work of criminal syndicates and covering this issue may be dangerous
* Provide community journalists an online outlet to create national and international audiences for their stories on human trafficking. It also intends to commission the writing of high-impact stories on human trafficking that would serve as reporting models
* Develop strategies for media and multi-sector interfaces through community dialogues as a follow-through to the writing and publication of stories on human trafficking

The Philippines has been identified as a source, transit and destination country for victims of human trafficking, and was placed on Tier 2–Watch List on the 2005 United States Department of State Trafficking in Persons Report. According to the United Nations, the Philippines has contributed 600,000 to 800,000 victims of trafficking in persons.

The number of victims remains disturbingly large despite the passage of an anti-trafficking in persons law in 2003 and intensified efforts by the government and nongovernmental organizations to curb human trafficking. Many reasons account for this: poverty, erosion of family values, graft and corruption, human trafficking syndicates, and police protection, among others.

The high incidence of human trafficking, however, is also due in part to the media’s failure to constantly keep in the public’s consciousness the plight of trafficked persons and, more importantly, the appropriate actions that can be and are being taken on the problem. Community journalists from both print and broadcast have a major role in performing this function as majority of the victims of trafficking in persons are destitute folk from impoverished rural areas enticed by promises of good jobs in the big cities or abroad. Sadly, many of these journalists lack the knowledge, skills, attitude and wherewithal to report on the organized and complex crime of human trafficking.

The project will be implemented in areas around the country identified as key transit points for human trafficking and will involve journalists, civil society organizations, law enforcement, and social service agencies of the government.