ADAM SMITH, economist, had this theory about an invisible hand. A person out to promote his self-interest, Smith said, tends also to promote the good of his community.

The reverse is true in the underworld where human traffickers prosper in direct proportion to the debasement of their slaves. Thousands of Filipino women, through the years, know this firsthand.

It is easy to dismiss their plight as an aberration, a few hiccups in an otherwise smooth-sailing enterprise known as overseas employment. But their stories are real, and are an indictment of the lack of political will that keeps our women from becoming other people’s slaves.

The story of Alice

Alice enjoyed a comfortable living in Hong Kong. True, she was a domestic helper but her employers were kind and she was earning P40,000 a month. When her contract ended, she decided to come home for a brief vacation with her family in Pampanga. She was offered a job by an illegal recruiter who promised her a good employer, a higher salary, and quick deployment to Dubai, a place that she had heard good things about.

She arrived in Dubai sometime in February 2006. Her first employer tried to sexually molest her. She complained to her agency, which transferred her to a different household. Her new employers included an indecent grandfather who kept trying to open her door at 2 o’clock in the morning. Alice learned to sleep with a knife under her pillow and her bed against the door. Fearful for her life and honor, she called the Philippine embassy to seek help but before it could send someone to rescue her, she was asked to pack and leave.

Her agency had sold her contract and passport to another agency in Oman. As she was unwilling to go into prostitution and now having found the strength to assert her rights, her foreign agent in Oman decided to sell Alice to another agent, this time in Damascus, Syria.

From Damascus to hell

Upon her arrival at the airport, immigration agents threw her in a detention cell for entering Syria without a visa. What she saw during her one-night stay in the immigration cell would stay with her for the rest of her life. On dingy walls, she said, were SOS messages crudely written by desperate Filipinos. She also saw a disheveled Filipino woman, with signs of mental illness, being mocked and played with by the guards.

The next day, Alice was released upon the intercession of a foreign broker who then sold her to a Sri Lankan. The Sri Lankan sold her to another agent, a man named Al Khatar. Al Khatar dispatched her to work as a domestic helper for a couple with six children. She was fed mostly kubos, waferlike bread that is staple fare in many Syrian households.

She worked from dawn to dawn, doing everything from cutting tree branches to cleaning the entire house and feeding the children. Alice was hungry all the time, and would often buy a piece of bread when instructed to go to the market. After sealing the piece of bread in a plastic bag, she would hide it in the garden. When her employers went to sleep at night, she would sneak out of the kitchen door to get the bread hidden behind the bushes and eat it behind the locked door of the bathroom.

Despite her hands bleeding from cutting tree branches and doing housework, every time Alice tried to collect on her salary, her employers would reply that they already paid $3,000 to her agent just to have her.

Acting on information provided by TV journalist Dindo Amparo of ABS-CBN’s Middle East bureau and the Blas F. Ople Policy Center, the Philippine embassy in Lebanon sent a team that negotiated for the repatriation of Alice and 16 more Filipino women working under oppressive conditions in Syria. The Department of Foreign Affairs had to pay penalties to the immigration office before the women could be given exit clearances.

Last year, the Philippines opened an embassy in Damascus, Syria. To its surprise, the Department of Foreign Affairs discovered that its original estimate of 6,000 undocumented Filipinos living in Syria was grossly understated. When the embassy opened its doors, its halfway center was immediately filled, and estimates of the number of Filipinos, mostly women workers, was at a more realistic 12,000.

The story of Sandy

Less than five feet tall but with a big personality, Sandy knows how to cut hair and make people look beautiful, having worked in a beauty parlor in Batangas City. Her husband’s meager earnings as a tricycle driver and her desire for a better life for her children, prompted her to accept a job as a domestic helper in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Her agent promised quick deployment under a fly-now, pay-later scheme.

In May 2008, upon their arrival in Malaysia, the women were made to ride in different vehicles. Sandy rode in a vehicle that took her directly to the boss of their local recruiter, a Singaporean who lived in a three-story townhouse. She stayed in that townhouse for two weeks until the agent was able to secure an employer.

She worked as domestic helper for a couple that owned three houses and had four children, with another baby due anytime soon. She worked from 5:30 in the morning to 1 a.m. the following day. Her breakfast at 6 a.m. consisted of a single piece of bread and a cup of coffee. Her next meal would be at 3 p.m., comprising of a bowl of gruel. Unable to cope with the demands of her work, she asked to be returned to her agent. She was not paid a single cent for her labor.

Slapped around

After a week, the girlfriend of her agent said that Sandy would be working for a spa. Sandy said she would happy in her new job. Unfortunately, her employer decided to terminate her contract for fear of being caught violating immigration laws. Sandy was granted a visa to work in Malaysia as a domestic helper, not as a massage therapist. Despite services rendered, the petite Filipina was denied her monthly pay. Sandy was told she would not be earning money because she still had an outstanding debt to her Singaporean boss.

Upon her return to the townhouse, her foreign agent asked her to go up to the third floor. There, she was slapped 20 times by her agent. Sandy’s return meant a loss of income as her second employer was asking for a refund. The Singaporean big boss demanded that Sandy admit to stealing money, including customers’ tips that she supposedly should have turned over to the agent. Repeatedly, Sandy denied the allegation, and for every denial, came a slap across the cheek from her enraged six-foot tall boss.

A lopsided law

The next day, the other Filipino women in the townhouse told Sandy they overheard the agent saying he would assign Sandy to work in one of the nightclubs. That night, a sympathetic housekeeper, also a Filipina, left the house keys on purpose, atop a table where Sandy could see it. When the agent and his girlfriend went to bed, Sandy and another companion used the keys to get out of the house and to the nearest highway where they were able to hail a cab that took them to the Philippine embassy.

In both cases narrated above, the victims cooperated with the Department of Justice, Department of Foreign Affairs, the National Bureau of Investigation, and the Commission on Filipinos Overseas, all of which have their own antitrafficking units.

Sandy and her companion filed a case against the Singaporean trafficker in Malaysia and in the Philippines. Yet up to this very day, almost one year later, a conviction has yet to be obtained. Since the Anti-Trafficking Act was passed in 2003, only 12 convictions have been handed down.

Legal vow of silence

What makes it worse is that the recruiters in both instances continue scouring the countryside for new victims. There is very little that can be done about it, because the Anti-Trafficking Law has a provision that is unique in the entire world for offering protection to both victims and the accused. Despite outstanding warrants of arrest and a long string of illegal recruitment and trafficking cases to their names, notorious traffickers are entitled to their right to privacy under the Anti-Trafficking law, specifically under Section 6, to wit:

EC. 7. Confidentiality—At any stage of the investigation, prosecution, and trial of an offense under this Act, law enforcement officers, prosecutors, judges, court personnel, and medical practitioners, as well as parties to the case, shall recognize the right to privacy of the trafficked person and the accused. Toward this end, law enforcement officers, prosecutors, and judges to whom the complaint has been referred may, whenever necessary to ensure a fair and impartial proceeding, and after considering all circumstances for the best interest of the parties, order a closed-door investigation, prosecution, or trial.

The name and personal circumstances of the trafficked person or of the accused or any other information tending to establish any such circumstances or information shall not be disclosed to the public.

This legally imposed vow of silence has made it easier for the likes of the Singaporean agent to revitalize his network of illegal recruiters and scouts after he posted bail in Malaysia. This week, the Philippine embassy in Kuala Lumpur repatriated a fresh batch of trafficked victims from Malaysia. Some of them escaped from the very same townhouse that Sandy had escaped from.

Alone at the end of the day

During this global financial crisis, a barangay (village) leader would be hard put to explain the how-tos and where-tos of the Comprehensive Livelihood and Emergency Employment Programs of different government departments and agencies.

Meanwhile, the sweet-talking scouts employed by syndicates to the tune of P3,000 per head delivered and deployed are on an aggressive marketing mission, a perverse example of Smith’s economic principle of the invisible hand.

The Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking does not have a permanent secretariat and a specific budget appropriation. Every year, it seeks an annual budget from the Department of Budget and Management. Every year, its request is turned down, prompting it to appeal to legislators for a modest insertion to come its way.

Most trafficking victims seek shelters and obtain legal assistance from nongovernment organizations. Considering that human trafficking is a transnational crime with profits third only to that of the drug and arms trade, how can a nongovernment organization even hope to sustain and even expand its work amid a rising tide of victims?

Reintegration of trafficking victims is virtually nonexistent. After the usual media splash surrounding their arrival where every agency is represented by a talking head, the victims find themselves all alone at the end of a long and weary day. And yet, most of them are in no position—emotionally, financially and physically—to come home to their families.

How can a victim even share with her spouse or parents the unspeakable things that she had to go through in order to survive?

Poverty bears woman’s face

Slavery in America came about because of extreme prejudice and blind intolerance due to one’s skin color. Today, slavery exists because poverty bears a woman’s face, and many are willing to profit from the pleasure of inflicting pain across her cheeks. While it is true that Filipino women are not the only ones being victimized by traffickers and slave traders, it cannot be denied that we have become a major source country of modern-day slaves.

But how can we protect the dignity of our women, if our very own law and the inherent weaknesses of our institutions contribute to elusive justice?

Our inability to fight back emboldens human traffickers to penetrate our borders and prey on the dreams of Filipino women for a better life. The Philippines has become the path of least resistance, a place where women labor can be had and sold as modern-day slaves.