MANILA, November 17, 2012-Senator Loren Legarda, Chair of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, today echoed the call of the Philippine Permanent Representative to the UN Office in Geneva for countries to ratify international instruments that will protect vulnerable sectors, such as the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (Palermo Convention) and the International Labor Organization’s (ILO’s) Convention 189 on domestic workers.
“Even as we celebrate the Philippine ratification of ILO 189, and are working on the proposed Expanded Anti-Trafficking Act, we should also urge other countries to work on these issues, as they affect a great number of women and children. I thus express full support to Ambassador Evan P. Garcia who seeks transnational support for these efforts,” she said.
Legarda, who sponsored both the Expanded Anti-trafficking Act and the Senate ratification of ILO Convention 189, among other efforts to safeguard vulnerable sectors, stressed that these issues should be among the top priorities of legislators all over the world.
“We saw the ratification of ILO Convention 189 last August, which was a milestone for Filipino domestic workers both here and abroad. We are also positive that we will soon have the Expanded Anti-trafficking Act, which will strengthen the prosecution of preempted acts of trafficking and provide protection to trafficked victims, among others,” she explained.
“In our increasingly globalized environment, countless persons are threatened by those who take advantage of others for their own gain. It is our responsibility to ensure that these injustices do not happen, not just on our own soil, but in all countries,” Legarda concluded.
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