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Burma: Junta may politicize relief distribution

Activists warn ASEAN, Aid workers:
BE WATCHFUL! THE JUNTA MAY POLITICIZE RELIEF DISTRIBUTION

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After their rally yesterday in front of the Myanmar (Burma) Embassy, activists under Free Burma Coalition-Philippines today held another rally outside the Thai Royal Embassy in Makati City and urged Thailand government, the next Chair of the ASEAN to also echo the demand for the immediate postponement of National Referendum in Burma. FBC-Phils is urging the ASEAN to likewise help in monitoring safe delivery of goods and services in disaster struck areas of the said cyclone-devastated country.

Holding banners with slogans “DO NOT POLITICIZE RELIEF DISTRIBUTION!”, said rally was attended by women activists from Coalition Against Trafficking in Women-Asia Pacific, Partido ng Manggagawa and the Initiatives for International Dialogue (IID).

FBC-Phils said that the junta should postpone the National Referendum set on May 10 not just on cyclone affected areas. The military regime of Burma already made an official announcement that it would postpone the referendum but only on affected areas of Burma.

The group reiterated that it is “improper and untimely” to pursue the referendum considering that the entire country is in distress. “Relief before Referendum is the main call of the FBC-Phils.

Egoy Bans, the FBC-Phils spokesperson said, “After ensuring safe delivery of food, medicine, water and other forms of assistance to the victims, Burma should still undergo a period of rehabilitation. The people especially women and children, the most vulnerable and marginalized in times of disaster, were traumatized by the effects of the cyclone. Right now, the people are more concerned on their own survival than voting on May 10.”

While it has been reported that ASEAN is also ready to send emergency aid, FBC-Phils stressed that the role of the regional grouping should not end in sending aid to Burma. The ASEAN should monitor delivery of goods to the victims and it is just timely for the ASEAN to convince Burma to postpone the planned referendum nationwide, the group added.

DEPOLITICIZE RELIEF DISTRIBUTION!

The group however warned that the military regime may politicize aid distribution and the junta may use this to further their own agenda on May 10.

Bans explained, “We are in a situation where the junta is hell-bent to pursue the referendum and the people right now are desperate to survive. To be blunt about it, everybody including the ASEAN and aid workers should be watchful for the “goods” not to be bartered for a “YES” vote on May 10″.

THERE HAVE BEEN SIGNS!

“We are just worried because there have been signs. First, the UN and other agencies are complaining about restrictions in mobility of aid workers, and some cannot assess the victims’ needs because of tight control in communications.” explained the FBC-Phils spokesperson.

The group said that knowing the junta that is fond of dirty tricks, it can do everything even playing on the emotions of its own people.

Free Burma Coalition-Philippines
Coalition Against Trafficking in Women-Asia Pacific
Bagong Kamalayan
Partido ng Manggagawa
Initiatives for International Dialogue (IID)

2008 05 08 catw-ap Burma
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Filipino activists march with torch in solidarity for Tibetans

 About 40 Filipino activists join a Tibetan student in staging a protest at the Chinese consulate in Manila to protest the military crackdown in Tibet. China has warned it would step up a controversial

Around 70 members of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women – Asia Pacific (CATW-AP), Alliance of Progressive Labor (APL), World March of Women – Pilipinas, and Initiatives for International Dialogue (IID) marched this morning in front of the Chinese Embassy in Makati to protest the ongoing crackdown against the Tibetan protesters.

Holding pictures of Tibetan victims of the killings, the groups denounced the restriction against international media coverage by China, preventing the world to see the real victims and perpetrators in the violence that followed the groundswell of protests last March. China has blamed the Tibetans for the violence, which pushed the Dalai Lama to threaten resignation. According to Tibetan groups, China precisely wanted that to happen towards removing moral authority from the Tibetan struggle and declaring them as terrorists.

“Numerous evidences have come out proving that Chinese police have dressed themselves up as monks and as ordinary Tibetans, held knives, robbed and set shops in Lhasa into fire,” according to the statement of the groups. Already, at least 140 Tibetans were killed and 1000 imprisoned, most of them monks and nuns.

Speakers underscored the strategic interest of China in Tibet, which has deepened in the recent years. “As China built roads, railways, bridges in and through Tibet, the exploitation of their resources by Canadian, Australian and Chinese corporations left the Tibetan population as among the poorest in the world. Too, China’s primary weapon research and design facility is located in the northeastern Tibetan province of Amdo,” said Jing Geaga, Coordinator of the World March of Women in the Philippines.

Marlene Sindayen of the Alliance of Progressive Labor (APL) criticized the discrimination against Tibetan workers by the Chinese employers. “Many Tibetans cannot find employment unless they speak Chinese,” according to Sindayen. Moreover, “virginity testing” is one of the most disturbing discriminatory practices against Tibetan women looking for employment. The purpose of the virginity test is to determine a job applicant’s “fitness” for employment. This is done by putting a hand inside a woman to check her virginity.

Cases of violence against Tibetan women, especially torture and prostitution in the hands of Chinese authorities, were denounced. According to Jean Enriquez, Executive Director of CATW-AP,

“Sexual torture, is applied to women political prisoners, including the nuns. These include use of dogs, use of lighted cigarettes, stripping prisoners naked, and penetration of the women’s orifices with electrical batons.”

“Prostitution has staggeringly increased in the face of economic hardship and discrimination against Tibetan women. But the most important factor is probably the influx of Chinese soldiers,” added Enriquez.

The Tibetan government in exile says there are 300,000 Chinese soldiers stationed in the autonomous region alone Tibetan victims of prostitution are as young as 13 or 14.

The groups made parallels between China’s complicity in the recent killings and imprisonment of numerous monks, nuns, women, students and workers by the Military Junta in Burma, and China’s complicity in the same acts in Tibet. Jun Bans of the Initiatives for International Dialogue (IID) called on the world to look intently into the incidents in Lhasa, and beyond that, understand the roots of the Tibetan people’s struggle. “Stop the violence against the Tibetans! Let the Olympic torch light the way toward restoring freedoms to the Tibetans,” Bans concluded.

A torch, parodying the Olympic symbol, is carried by the group. It was labeled “torch of freedom for the Tibetans.”

2008 04 04 catw-ap Tibet
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China’s Violence on Tibetans Should Stop Immediately, HEED THEIR CALL FOR FREEDOM

At least 140 were reported killed among the Tibetan protesters in the wake of recent groundswell in the run up to the Beijing Olympics. More than 1,000, most of them monks and nuns, were jailed. The entire picture is being denied of the world by the Chinese government through censorship and propaganda portraying violence as coming from the Tibetans.

Numerous evidences have come out proving that Chinese police have dressed themselves up as monks and as ordinary Tibetans, held knives, robbed and set shops in Lhasa into fire. But before such evidences came out, the Chinese authorities blamed the Tibetans for the death of five young women (which includes a Tibetan) in a clothing shop. Staging of riots as coming from dissenters has been done by Chinese authorities in the past – in March 1989, a group of young men in their twenties acted in a similarly organized way. They first shouted slogans, burnt some vehicles near the Ramoche Monastery, then broke into nearby stores, robbed them, and finally burnt scores of the stores. Chief Commander of Armed Police, Mr. Li Lianxiu has been reported by the media to have ordered earlier thus, “the Special Squad should immediately assign 300 members to be disguised as ordinary citizens and Tibetan monks, entering the Eight-Corner Street and other riot spots in Lhasa, to support plain-clothes police to complete the task. Burn the Scripture Pagoda at the northeast of Dazhao Temple. Smash the rice store in the business district, incite citizens to rob rice and food, attack the Tibet-Gansu Trading Company.”

After the Tiananmen Square massacre of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of students in June 1989, the Chinese government similarly turned the Chinese public’s sentiments against the students. It did so by showing staged immolation by Falun Gong practitioners in Tiananmen and by claiming that the students attacked the soldiers.

We call on the world to look intently into the incidents in Lhasa, and beyond that, understand the roots of the Tibetan people’s struggle. The upcoming Beijing Olympics is a rare opportunity that they are taking to call attention to their 50-decade struggle against an illegal occupation. This occupation has led to the brutal oppression of Tibetans, the destruction of their culture and the draining of their environmental resources — especially of its forests, minerals, grasslands. As China built roads, railways, bridges in and through Tibet, the exploitation of their resources by Canadian, Australian and Chinese corporations left the Tibetan population as among the poorest in the world.

Tibet’s strategic importance to China is further illustrated by the presence of China’s primary weapon research and design facility, known as the “Ninth Academy”, in the northeastern Tibetan province of Amdo. The facility is the most secret organization in China’s entire nuclear program and remains today an important and high security military weapons plant.

Tibetan women have historically been subjected to a wide range of violence including torture, rape and reproductive rights’ violations. Sexual torture is applied to women political prisoners. These include use of dogs, use of lighted cigarettes, stripping prisoners naked, and penetration of the women’s orifices with electrical batons. The torture perpetrated against nuns carries another destructive layer: they are forced to suffer the abuse of their religious vows. Most recently, the monks and nuns were forced to sign papers denouncing the Dalai Lama. The raping of nuns is common. Forcing nuns and monks to have sex with each other has also been reported.

Methods of enforcement of Chinese family planning policies in Tibet have been coercive. For those who do not comply with official policies, there are penalties in the form of fines, loss of jobs or reduction of pay, and loss of housing. Women are given the “option” of paying a fine or terminating a pregnancy. The fines imposed are often the equivalent of more than a month’s wages.

Many Tibetans cannot find employment unless they speak Chinese. Tibetan women (and men) have lost jobs because they, or their relatives, have been associated with political activities that the Chinese authorities call “separatist activities”.

“Virginity testing” is a most disturbing discriminatory practice against Tibetan women looking for employment. The purpose of the virginity test is to determine a job applicant’s “fitness” for employment. Women who pass the virginity test have to sign a contract promising that they will not get married or engage in sexual activity for three years.

Prostitution has staggeringly increased in the face of economic hardship, discrimination and lack of opportunities for Tibetan women. Tibetan victims of prostitution are as young as 13 or 14. The London-based Free Tibet Campaign estimates 1,000 brothels in Lhasa. But the single most important factor is probably the large inflow of Chinese soldiers. Lots of brothels are near military areas and camps, as everywhere in the world. The Tibetan government in exile says there are 300,000 Chinese soldiers stationed in the autonomous region alone.

The entire picture of the Tibetan women’s and people’s sufferings cannot be captured in this statement. But their reports to United Nations bodies bear hard statistics on their sufferings. Our sisters among the Tibetan nuns, our brothers among the exiles, our friends among the activists are calling for international action, until China heeds their call.

Stop the violence against the Tibetans! Restore their freedoms as a people! Free Tibet now!

Coalition Against Trafficking in Women – Asia Pacific (CATW-AP)
Alliance of Progressive Labor (APL)
World March of Women – Pilipinas
Initiatives for International Dialogue (IID)

2008 04 04 catw-ap Tibet
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Look Who’s Talking: The Big-time Thief is in Malacañang

Press Conference Statement
On the Occasion of International Women’s Day

In an En Banc meeting of the National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC) in Malacañang on Oct. 17, 2006, Pres. Gloria Arroyo said that prostituted women are like “petty thieves and criminals.” Therefore, to her, the women victims of prostitution should remain criminalized.

The above statement was made by Ms. Arroyo in response to the women’s sectoral council representative’s request that the anti-prostitution bill be certified as a priority bill. As we have been lobbying for 8 years now for the passage of said legislation, we might have anticipated a ‘no’ for an answer, but not a statement that further stigmatizes the victims in prostitution. Her statement becomes even more ironic now that the Palace is faced with grave charges of corruption – theft of public resources for private gain –, and worse, with treason for selling out Philippine sovereignty in exchange for fat Chinese loans.

We lament the fact that Philippine government officials – including the highest one – have found an ally in the Supreme Court in covering up their wrongdoings even as the victims of prostitution continue to get arrested nightly. To date, 1,031 recorded arrests for 2006 and 2007 have been gathered by the survivors’ group Bagong Kamalayan Collective, Inc. (BKCI), with the help of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women – Asia Pacific (CATW-AP).

When arrested, the women are given the options “to bed or to jail” by the police. Liza Gonzales, an incest survivor who was victimized in street prostitution for 7 years, has been arrested at least 40 times, jailed for a sum of at least 2 years, sexually abused by the police for at least 15 times. The women are forced to accede to the police officers’ extraction of money or sexual advances for fear of leaving behind their children for months. “Arbor” is Filipino slang for sexual favor required by police officers of victims of prostitution in exchange for jail terms.

In the words of Eunice (not her real name), another officer of BKCI, “Nasa presinto na ako noon, tapos narinig ko yung isang bos tsip nila na lumapit sa umaresto sa akin at sinabi niya na aarborin na lang daw niya ako. Walang tanung-tanong, basta ang sabi sa akin sumama na lang daw ako para huwag akong makulong. Dalidali akong pinasakay sa kotse. Labag man sa loob ko pero inisip ko na lang mas okay na ito kaysa sa makulong o magbayad, may dalawa pa akong anak na naghihintay sa akin ngayong gabi. Isang linggo niya akong ginamit nang paulit-ulit at tuwing nababagansya ako ay aarborin niya ako at dadalhin sa motel.”

Excessive Abuse of Power

Kotong or monetary extraction from the women by the police is commonplace. The women are asked to give P100-300 to be released. In the case of Gina (not her real name) who was arrested in February 2008, her cellphone and those of 2 others were taken by the police. They were told to come back and give P750 to be able to get their phones back. But when they returned to the police station, the arresting officers refused to return their phones.

Our aggregate data above only covers the cities of Manila, Quezon, Pasay, Caloocan and Makati in Metro Manila. On top of this, BKCI itself adds 68 arrests during the same time period, which were not in the records of Quezon City police. Those in the BKCI records were rescued by our organizations from jail through assertion that the women are victims and should not be jailed. We argue that pimps or buyers should be the ones arrested and prosecuted. For 2008, there are already 39 recorded arrests in Pasay for the month of January alone.

Cases Solved? O Areglo?

Highest record for vagrancy arrests was in Manila with 789 women apprehended. However, we noted that whereas the arrests recorded in Ermita station (Station 5) alone reached a total of 371, there were only 43 cases filed with the Chief Prosecutor’s Office. We wonder then as to what happened to the arrested women. Why were their cases not filed? Were they released and on what bases or conditions? Could they have suffered the same fate as Liza, Eunice, Gina and many others? Given the incidence of undocumented killings of prostituted women, we believe there is much cause to worry about numbers that do not tally, and cases that cannot be witnessed or traced.

In Pasay, the women’s desk officer attested that they are not involved in the operations involving prostituted women. According to Eunice, police officers are frequent buyers of prostituted women. The very bar in Pasay where she was trapped in was owned by a police officer. Could the women’s desk officers – who appear relatively enlightened on women’s issues as they believe that prostituted women are victims – be made to focus on domestic violence and rape issues because prostitution is an “untouchable” area? Could the police operators be settling the cases through favors or other means? The Pasay City records showed equal number of “arrests” and “solved cases.” Could they be protecting the industry where they gain both sexually and financially?

In Quezon City, where our organizations have been campaigning for a paradigm shift – to focus arrests, investigation and prosecution on the perpetrators rather than the victims – police officers have reduced the number of arrests of prostituted women for vagrancy. However, some stations charge the women with robbery or estafa, instead, in connivance with customers. In Caloocan, the arrests happen in broad daylight even, and not just at night when vagrancy as legally defined takes place. Delia (not her real name), a street prostitute in front of Grand Central, was incarcerated for 6 months for theft.

Makati City boasts of having no arrests, despite the notorious image of the city for being the haven for high-class prostitution establishments. We then ask, how is the city acting on the establishment owners and buyers of prostitution in their area?

The big picture is clear: victims of poverty and sexual abuse go to jail while the real criminals stay in power.

Prosecute the Real Perpetrators

The present term of Congress should finally repeal the Vagrancy Act and pass an anti-prostitution law that effectively protects victims. In time for the Filipino women’s celebration of International Women’s Day, we anticipate the immediate passage of our bill.

Hon. Francis Joseph “Chiz” Escudero (present in our press conference), Chair of the Senate Committee on Justice and Human Rights and sponsor of the anti-prostitution bill, has agreed to include the buyers and the business among actors to be penalized in the new law that will amend Art. 341 and repeal Art. 202 of the Revised Penal Code. We are equally hopeful that public officials will not be exempted from punishment should they be found guilty as actors.

We have seen the commitment of good senators in investigating thefts of public resources. We expect to witness the same courage on their part to see to the very end what we work for: the shift of accountability from the victims to the real perpetrators within the prostitution industry.

As we would like to witness that high officials of our land be charged and held accountable for prostituting our sovereignty as a people, so do we expect all other pimps prosecuted. Only then can we restore our hope in seeking justice for the Filipino people, especially our women.

Prosecute the big-time thief and pimp in Malacañang,
Not the victims of poverty and abuse.
Pass the Anti-Prostitution Law!

Coalition Against Trafficking in Women – Asia Pacific (CATW-AP)
Bagong Kamalayan Collective, Inc. (BKCI)
Batis – AWARE
Buklod Center – Olongapo
Development Action for Women Network (DAWN)
Fatima Allian, Mindanao
Kanlungan Center
Lawig Bubai – Davao
SALIGAN
Talikala – Davao
WomanHealth Philippines
WomenLEAD
Alliance of Progressive Labor (APL) – Women
Sarilaya
World March of Women - Pilipinas

2008 03 06 catw-ap Revised Penal Code
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