International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and their Families can similarly be referred to as containing lists of rights violated in trafficking cases. These instruments contain, among several others, the rights to: 1. life, liberty, security of person (Art. 3, UDHR), 2. freedom from slavery, servitude and all forms of slave trade (Art. 4, UDHR; Art. 8, ICCPR) 3. freedom from torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (Art. 5, UDHR; Art.7, ICCPR), 4. recognition everywhere as a person before the law (Art.16, ICCPR), 5. non-discrimination to the equal protection of the law (Art. 26, ICCPR), 6. highest attainable standard of physical and mental health (Art. 12, ICESR). Through both sets of general instruments and those that make particular reference to trafficking, states parties are obliged to submit reports on how the rights are being implemented. National legislations are to be crafted in harmony with these international standards. In the Philippines, the anti-trafficking law or Republic Act 9208 was passed as an almost exact copy of the Palermo Protocol or the UN Anti-Trafficking Protocol, attached to the Main Convention on Transnational Organized Crime. Its most salient points, such as the definition of trafficking as a crime where the “consent” of the victim is rendered irrelevant, are adopted. Let me just reiterate how significant it is to remove from the victim the burden of proof that she was forced. The important point is the presence of exploitation. That the definition includes all means of trafficking beyond the use of force allows the protection of more persons trafficked by those who take advantage of their vulnerability. Clearly, both the UN Anti-Trafficking Protocol and the Philippine law understand the presence of inequalities in society–may they be of sex, race, class and other categories – inequalities recognized also by the fundamental human rights standards. Thus, exploiters are not given mitigating excuses to say that victims “consent,” and the marginalized is protected domestically and internationally by these principles. Moreover, the Philippine law discourages demand in trafficking by punishing the buyers of trafficked persons, in accordance with the UN Anti-Trafficking Protocol, which encourages states to legislate against demand. However, implementers of the law still relegate women who have been in prostitution for a long time as “consenting victims” which is a contradiction in terms and concept. Does not the act of recruitment, or harboring or receipt of persons been applied to them by either procurers or buyers? Was their vulnerability not taken advantage of by pimps or buyers when they entered prostitution because they have been sexually abused as a child? Are they not, by UN Anti-Trafficking Protocol definition, trafficked, too? If so, why do we allow them to be victimized all over again by allowing them to be arrested, prosecuted and jailed? 50 ❙ Seoul International Conference Against Human Trafficking in Migrant Women