The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) has committed to institutionalize zero tolerance on trafficking in persons (TIP) in all its infrastructure projects all over the Philippines under an agreement with the Millennium Challenge Corporation MCC and Millennium Challenge Account-Philippines (MCA-P).
The new policy will be undertaken through the capacity-building of DPWH employees and staff from its 18 regional offices, including the central office, as well as adoption of an anti-TIP policy.
The Anti-TIP effort is expected to increase the capacity, knowledge and skills of concerned DPWH personnel on various measures for integration in different phases of construction using the “Toolkit for Making Road Infrastructure Projects Gender Responsive.”
MCC and MCA-P pioneered the anti-TIP advocacy in infrastructure development in the Philippines in the implementation of the Secondary National Roads Development Project (SNRDP), a 222-kilometer road-rehabilitation project in the provinces of Eastern Samar and Samar, which are identified as TIP hotspots.
The influx of labor needed by wide-scale construction work, such as the SNRDP, is believed to increase the vulnerability of communities to TIP. This prompted the DPWH, MCC and MCA-P to work together not only to deliver safer roads to the people of Samar and Eastern Samar, but also to protect the rights of vulnerable communities, particularly women and children, from TIP.
Undersecretary Maria Catalina S. Cabral, chairwoman of the DPWH committee on gender and development (COGAD), in her speech at the opening of the first batch of Training of Trainers on Feb. 10, 2016, expressed the DPWH’s commitment to pursue, sustain and mainstream SNRDP’s unprecedented anti-TIP efforts by incorporating anti-TIP initiatives to the DPWH Gender Toolkit to further the Department’s efforts towards gender responsive and sensitive infrastructure.
“I commend the DPWH for recognizing the importance of this issue and its own initiatives to try to fight trafficking and we’re very happy to be able to support the DPWH in its initiatives in this area. The DPWH is really in a unique position to be able to make change and to have a better fight against trafficking in persons within its projects,” MCC Deputy Resident Country Director Burak Inanc said.
MCA-P Managing Director and CEO Ma. Victoria Anoñuevo, in her inspirational message, said, “I personally have no doubt that if we remain steadfast in fighting TIP, we will eventually break the vicious cycle that robs human beings of their dignity and hinders our growth as a nation.
“A herculean task but we are optimistic, that our partnership will pave the way to strengthen the DPWH’s resolve to move toward a gender-responsive organization, with utmost consideration on the welfare of every individual affected by infrastructure projects,” she added.