Press Releases (Philippines)

Walden Bello, Director of the Focus on the Global South, and Josua Mata, Secretary-General of the Alliance of Progressive Labor (APL), were also on the frontlines and were pepper-sprayed.  However, they marched on in what was dubbed as the funeral march for the WTO, led by Via Campesina, the biggest international coalition of peasants.

"The international mass movement delivered a strong message against the WTO! Through the discipline and determination of Korean farmers, students and workers, we managed to breach several police blockades," stated Mata.

Hong Kong people lined up along the route and gave food, water and even handed flowers.  They cheered and chanted "down, down WTO!"  The police guarding the convention panicked and used rubber bullets.  Arrests of at least 71 protesters were made, among them Filipinos.

Filipino women from the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women - Asia Pacific (CATW-AP) and Kanlungan were also part of the protests.  "While we choked from the tear gas, none of us were hurt," reported Jean Enriquez, Deputy Director of CATW-AP.  Enriquez mentioned that they united with the farmers and workers in protesting the WTO as it caused the impoverishment of women and outmigration of thousands of Filipinas for precarious jobs.  The groups also lobbied the official delegation for the rejection of Annex C of the Ministerial text that contains provisions for the liberalization of services, including energy and tourism.  "Liberalization of tourism will spell loss of jobs in fishing and agriculture, and aggravate sexual exploitation of women in developing countries," she added.

Dozens of Koreans suffered head injuries, however, yet sat in vigil in the streets of Wan Chai through the dawn.  The arrests were brutal, according to Focus and CATW who witnessed the events.  Some unionists were beaten up, they were strip-searched, and were not even allowed to go to the toilet.

As today is the last day of the negotiations, NGOs are reportedly banned from attending the closing ceremony.  The Filipino groups, as part of the umbrella organization Our World is Not For Sale (OWINFS), condemned the brutal dispersal and demanded the immediate release of the protesters.  "Release those fighting to save their livelihood from the WTO," was the call from the OWINFS letter to Donald Tsang, Chair of the Ministerial Meeting and to Pascal Lamy, WTO Director General.

Migrant workers, under the banner of the Migrants Forum in Asia, will lead today's marches to the Convention Center.

Contact Persons:  Jean Enriquez +639217435962

                           Joseph Purugganan +85261296015

                           Josua Mata +639177942431

CATW Statement

Women are Not for Sale! Stop Liberalization of Tourism, No to GATS!

Ten years of World Trade Organization policies on agriculture, non-agricultural sector and services have resulted in massive impoverishment of women.  This impoverishment aggravated at least two phenomena:  feminization of migration and sex trafficking.

In the Philippines alone, at least 74% of 2,000 Filipinos that leave the country daily are women.  Trafficked persons around the world is estimated at 800,000 yearly, 80% of whom are women from developing countries.  In the developing world, the women who are trafficked lament of landlessness or lack of employment, or miserably low wages or violence against women, as conditions they leave so that they risk their lives elsewhere.  WTO has literally wiped out any source of livelihood left in home countries.

The deepening capitalist consciousness, manifsted not only in material relations but in treatment of human beings, worsens commodification of people.  Under GATS Mode 4, or 'movement of natural persons,' skilled workers will not be considered as workers, they are without rights.

Liberalization of tourism is also part of the agenda in the WTO GATS, as part of Mode 2 ('consumption abroad').  Liberalized investments in tourism contributes to a loss of jobs in traditional sectors as fishing and agriculture.  Exploitation of women and children is widespread in tourist destinations as low-paid workers, hired in precarious jobs.  Women also receive 30% less than their male colleagues in comparable jobs.  Worse, they are used in the marketing approaches by tour operators, many traffickers use the women in developing countries as come-on and products to be sold or "part of the destinations to be visited."  Sex tourism and prostitution has become investment opportunities for capitalists abroad.

Liberalization of services are being rammed down our throats, even as both developed and developing countries have not conducted impact studis of suc policies, and despite histories of neglect and abuse of the environment, indigenous peoples, women, children and workers in the process and as a result of.

Militarism is also an important function of globalization and the former creates the demand for trafficked women and children.  The wars waged by US and the Coalition forces in Afghanistan and Iraq are important for their economic interests.  Military presence in many countries in the South created a demand for prostitution.  In South Korea alone, prostitution increased with the presence of American forces.

Fighting against sexual exploitation makes it imperative for feminists to reject the notion of prostitution as sex work, becasue prostitution is exploitation that is at the crux of capitalist exchange and patriarchal practice and belief that men have the right to buy women.  It is imperative for us to struggle for an elaternative economic system and trade justice -- towards alternative lives for women and not give up on prostitution as "sex work" or the end point of our lives that only needs to be reformed.

Alongside survivors of prostitution, we continue to resist impoverishment and globalization.  We continue to resist patriarchal conditioning and systems.  We call for women to be protected, while punishing the owners of prostitution establishments.

Prostitution is violence against women.  Women are not for sale.  Junk the WTO!