"I worked as a child labourer in a fishing community to help my big family of ten brothers and sisters. I know how it feels to be hungry. I know how it feels to be neglected, and humiliated by your teachers."

Cecilia Flores-Oebanda
South East Asian Regional Coordinator of Global March
Visayan Forum

What has been your motivation to become actively involved in child labour issues?

My personal motivation came from my own experience of being a child labourer. I worked as a child labourer in a fishing community to help my big family of ten brothers and sisters. I know how it feels to be hungry. I know how it feels to be neglected, and humiliated by your teachers when you have gone to school and feel sleepy all the time. I was so very young then. I think I was only seven years old. So this experience fraught with hardship and poverty gives me a lot of motivation. I have actually grown up in an issue, which really addressed the root cause of poverty.

What shaped your activities when you were young?

I was heavily involved in church activities along with my Catholic parents. I grew up with Catholic people in a Catholic environment. So my services’ orientation was shaped up by the church. I think since the age of fifteen, I have been working with the people and my role was more in organising youth and children. I really enjoyed working with the children and the parents till I grew up.

It was then the period of Ferdinand Marcos regime in Philippines. So most of us young people actually raised the cause of fighting against dictatorship. During that time I was already organising the youth sectors of the agriculture community, the sugarcane plantation in my province. Because of this background, at the height of Martial Law, I joined the guerilla movement in Philippines and stayed there for quite a long time until I was captured by the military in a running gun battle and was detained for four years.

I was married during the time and expecting my second child. Two of my children grew up inside the detention centre. The whole family including my husband and children was at the centre for a considerable period of time. My children have now become strong child advocates.

It was very difficult for me seeing my children without any rights because they were prisoners like me. Their only crime was that they were my children. They were not allowed to go out. My children never knew about life beyond the cell. So when they started to grow up, some of the nuns and social activists brought them outside the detention centre for exposure. And I feel that the people, the church people, students really gave a lot of time to us, care and love, brought us food, and most significantly brought the key issue on the streets. I didn’t know them, yet they were marching on the streets with banners having my name and of my family and helping for the release of political detainees. So how can I forget that? I know how my children suffered in the detention centre. I know how they grew up as children without any rights at all. So if we talk of motivation, I am not short of motivation because of these experiences.

How did the birth of the organisation -Visayan Forum take place?

After 1990 and 4 years at the detention centre, luckily we were released because of the overthrow of Marcos regime. When I was released I could not go back to my own province as it was still reeling under a lot of troubles. So we started a migrant organisation, called the Visayan Forum.

What is the focus of work of your organisation?

Visayan Forum is mainly a migrant organisation, looking into the rights of the children specially those who have to leave home because of work. Most of the migrants are working children. Among these migrants we are able to intercept groups of children especially young girls, coming from other parts of the country and going to Manila trying to find work as domestic servants. Visayan Forum focuses mainly on the issue of children working away from home, mostly domestic workers and trafficked children. Our involvement on child labour is more on advocacy, direct intervention and programmes with focus on children working away from home.

	"Our focus is on migrant children because they are more vulnerable than those staying with parents. There may be a lot of children working in other cultures, say in fishing communities with their parents but migrant children are vulnerable because they don’t have any support system."

Why is the focus mainly on migrant children?

Our focus is on migrant children because they are more vulnerable than those staying with parents. There may be a lot of children working in other cultures, say in fishing communities with their parents but migrant children are vulnerable because they don’t have any support system. They are uprooted from their community and they experience multiple vulnerabilities, specially the young girls, such as domestic workers. So I see a whole range of issues related to migrant and trafficked children. In the Philippines there are also a lot of NGOs working with the other kinds of children, street children, children in prostitution. But in Visayan Forum our role is really to look into children who are working away from home.

The difference between our child trafficking intervention in the Philippines for our trafficking programme and that of others in South East Asia is that we are mainly focusing on internal migration (children moving from one island to another island). Other interventions in South East Asia are more on cross border trafficking.

How do you conduct such activities?

Visayan Forum has now four centres in Manila port in different parts of the country. These areas are identified as strategic points for the children coming from all the regions, from all the islands. This kind of intervention is really unique because the role of Visayan Forum is facilitation and provision of protective care to the children. Other important work of Visayan Forum is to organise the whole port community including the shipping companies. We orient all the staff of the shipping companies on how to identify the possible victims of child trafficking. We also orient the police, the coast guards, marine officials all the important agents in the port, also the trade unions, cargo concerns in the port in order to help us intercept and identify the possible victims. The port police and the coastguard routinely check suspected traffickers once the ferry has docked and passengers are about to disembark.

What kind of cooperation do you get from the port community while intercepting internal migration?

The staff is very cooperative in this respect. We call them the task force. We have a task person in Manila and other ports. In this way, we are able to do something for the children in terms of direct interception. As for those children, whom we find vulnerable of possible trafficking, we put them in our centres.

What happens to the children after they are intercepted?

The migrants are put into schools, residential care or if possible their families and homes are tracked down and they are then sent back to their respective places.

We have a range of services including the bureau. For the children who don’t want to go back to their families, we have long-term services like putting them into schools or at the residential care. Those who have an opportunity to go back to their families, we facilitate it after we have a family assessment in which the governments also help us.

What are the other campaigns that your organisation concentrates upon?

We really look forward to building of a national task force for the trafficking of children.

Two weeks ago the bill on the trafficking field, which was proposed last year before the Senator in the Congress, was passed. Just recently, some of the staff went to the President's palace to witness the signing of the law by the President. It is a law, a bill that gives enforcement in apprehending the traffickers.

Visayan Forum is a member of the government committee, facilitating the implementation of C182. So we are part of the policy meetings in the government. Secondly we are also heading two committees in helping the Philippines Government to address the programmes on child labour. They are the Secretariat of Capacity and Social Mobilisation Committee of Philippines Programme against Child Labour. The government is respecting us and that’s why they put us in the committee and identified us as one of the major players on child labour. We are also consolidating most of the reports of the governments. So I think we have a very fortunate position with the government. Definitely, Visayan Forum acts as a watchdog on the implementation of programmes of the Philippines Government.

	"Definitely the role for the liberation of children from the worst forms is not easy for all of us, in the Global March. But what I am really very optimistic about is that there is so much commitment within the Global March, especially at the regional and international level."

What role according to you does the Internet play for an NGO world?

Internet is very important in the technological explosion of the world. I feel the role of the Internet is more on the intellectual level. It is more into educating and advocating for policy changes and perceptions of the leaders and the actors.

In Philippines the net usage is very strong. For us, web is very important, especially for those who are looking into the issues and trying to convince the other people to be involved in the issue.

Do you have any message for the Global March Movement?

We have gone through a long way of struggle. Global March serves the purpose of advocating the issue of child labour especially the worst forms and it is manifested in the ratification of ILO 182. Definitely the role for the liberation of children from the worst forms is not easy for all of us, in the Global March. But what I am really very optimistic about is that there is so much commitment within the Global March, especially at the regional and international level. From that commitment, I believe that the contribution of Global March in the fight against child labour will make a lot of difference.

Yet, lots need to be done by all of us. There is still a long way to freedom for all those children. So we really need to be patient to fulfill our mission.