This is great!!
Over 400,000 Pinoys sign petition vs sex trafficking
MANILA, Philippines - More than 400,000 Filipinos have signed a petition to stop sex trafficking of children and young people, said to be one of the world's largest criminal industries.
The petition, launched by cosmetics store The Body Shop and non-profit organization End Child Prostitution, Pornography and the Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes or EPCAT, was received by President Benigno Aquino III on Wednesday.
It contained 473,489 signatures.
President Aquino assured Filipinos of his government's commitment to fight human trafficking, saying that the removal of the Philippines from the Tier 2 Watchlist of the United States' Trafficking in Persons Report is not enough.
"We will continue our fight against human trafficking," the President said in a speech.
"I assure all of you that we will not cease in our efforts -- and that the Philippines will put in extra hours to make certain that we comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking, so that we may rise to another tier."
The petition called on the Aquino government to "develop community-based prevention programs for the most vulnerable children; raise awareness of trafficking in schools; improve law enforcement systems in order to combat crimes against children; build capacity service providers and the allocation of further resources for those organizations that provide recovery and reintegration services to child victims of tracking for sexual purposes."
As much as 100,000 children are trafficked annually, and most of these are girls that are to be sexually exploited, The Body Shop said in its anti-trafficking web page.
Currently, the website's online petition has gathered 6.69 million signatures. -- Report from Willard Cheng, ABS-CBN News
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