MANILA, Philippines — A Filipino woman has been hailed as an anti-trafficking hero in the US state department’s Trafficking in Persons Report-2008 released on June 4.

A US Embassy statement in Manila said Cecilia Flores-Oebanda, executive director and president of the Visayan Forum Foundation, was among only 10 anti-trafficking advocates from around the world who were recognized in the report for exemplary efforts toward combating trafficking in persons.

“Cecilia Flores-Oebanda, a longtime advocate against trafficking and former political prisoner, continues to pave the road for NGO and government collaboration on anti-trafficking efforts in the Philippines and around the world,” the report read.

“As the president and executive director of the Visayan Forum Foundation, Ms Oebanda works for the welfare of marginalized migrants,” it added.

Seventeen years after she founded the organization to strengthen the rights of migrant women and children from poor areas in the Visayas, Oebanda manages five halfway houses and four domestic centers and will open three new halfway houses in 2008, according to the report.

Since 2001, the foundation rescued and provided assistance to more than 32,000 victims and potential victims of trafficking and helped file 66 trafficking cases on behalf of 166 victims, the report added.

Oebanda is also the recipient of Anti-Slavery International’s Anti-Slavery Award in 2005 and the Skoll Foundation Award for Social Entrepreneurship in 2008.

US Ambassador Kristie A. Kenney congratulated Oebanda for the recognition, adding that the battle against human trafficking was a high priority for the US government and the American people.

Kenney also said development assistance from the United States contributed more than $1 million to support anti-trafficking activities in the Philippines in 2007, including nearly $500,000 in financial support to Oebanda’s foundation to operate halfway houses at ports throughout the country.

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