NEWS RELEASE
For Immediate Release
MARCH 5, 2009 – MANILA, PHILIPPINES – Newsbreak, an online investigative newsmagazine, re-launches today at the Dusit Hotel its special website dedicated to special reports on human trafficking, www.humantraffickinginasia.net.
The humantraffickinginasia.net website is in response to the need for effective communication, information sharing, and coordination among activists, law enforcement officials, and service providers in order to improve coordinated counter-trafficking efforts, and to help protect and reintegrate trafficking survivors. Newsbreak takes full advantage of the low-cost, broadly accessible platform for information sharing, management, and application that the Internet provides. The anti-trafficking website, created in 2007 in partnership with The Asia Foundation and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), served as a database of stories on human trafficking published by Newsbreak.
Due to the demand for more information and resources on trafficking, Newsbreak refurbished the website with funding support from the U.S. Department of State Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (G/TIP) and The Asia Foundation. Aside from the package of investigative stories on unexplored areas of the human trafficking problem, it now includes a new feature to facilitate online sharing of information among anti-trafficking advocates – the partners’ blog.
Newsbreak is committed to take further steps to raise awareness and extend the outreach of the website. To date, Newsbreak has conducted two trainings on web publishing for 18 individuals from nine anti-trafficking partners. It plans to conduct another training program in March for other anti-trafficking partners who wish to contribute to the group blog.
According to Gemma Bagayaua-Mendoza, Deputy Editor for Research & Systems of Newsbreak and abs-cbnnews.com, the website is a resource tool for reports on human trafficking, where people can find out how trafficking occurs, what efforts are being done to curb the practice, and the missing elements in the fight against trafficking. The blog, on the other hand, is a tool for collaboration, a way for anti-trafficking organizations to share firsthand accounts of the problem that is human trafficking and how they solve it in their levels. “The website and the blog are a useful guide for policymakers, local government leaders, media, and organizations involved in anti-human trafficking, in working towards solving to the human trafficking problem,” she says.
The Asia Foundation fully supports Newsbreak’s efforts to maintain an open, free, and credible source of information on human trafficking and efforts to combat it. According to Maribel Buenaobra, Managing Program Officer of the Anti-Trafficking Project of the Foundation, this strategy ensures that government and nongovernment organizations working on the issue are knowledgeable and are kept up-to-date on anti-trafficking activities. “Trafficking in persons is such a huge issue that it needs the effective collaboration and coordination among various stakeholders and anti-trafficking advocates to address this problem. For instance, migrant workers constitute about ten percent of the entire population of the country, and it is imperative that we arm them with enough information on safe migration to ensure that they do not fall prey to traffickers. Anti-trafficking advocates need to be technology-savvy and creative in utilizing information, as traffickers are not only one step ahead of anti-trafficking groups, but also have many resources at their disposal. The humantraffickinginasia.net website will be a useful tool to address both national and international trafficking,” she says.
The launching today will be graced by U.S. Ambassador Kristie A. Kenney. The event will enable Newsbreak to introduce the new website, provide details about the latest report posted on the website, and orient the anti-trafficking organizations on how to register and post in the partners’ blog.
Through blogging, or online publishing, anti-trafficking organizations can provide updates on ongoing legal cases, announce events, share opinions and stories from the field, and provide information to other advocates – all with the goal of making collaboration of efforts easier. Dissemination of relevant and latest information to successfully stop human trafficking can now be done at more efficiently through the Internet.
About Newsbreak
Newsbreak is a mainly online publication owned by Public Trust Media Group, Inc., a group of premiere and award-winning journalists that value fairness and accuracy. Newsbreak aims to be the most credible news and current affairs magazine in the Philippines today. It provides investigative, in-depth stories on: Congress, the presidency, security sector, judiciary, the media, local governments, elections, business and the economy. It also provides incisive analysis, as well as insider stuff that give a ringside view of the workings of people, politics, and power. Prior to its move to online publishing, it was a fortnightly issued magazine, with the first issue published on January 24, 2001, shortly after EDSA 2, when the Philippines was steeped in stories on people power.
Newsbreak’s different sections appeal to a variety of readers. It has sections like the Inside Track, an intelligencer of juicy political and business goings on; Institution Watch, where it monitors the transparency and accountability of key institutions such as local governments, the military and police, the media, Mindanao, and the private sector; and Investigations, the site of its investigative reports.
Today, as an online publication, Newsbreak has reputable media partners in cyberspace – www.abs-cbnnews.com and www.asiaviews.org. Its print partner is the daily Philippine Star. Apart from its Web presence, Newsbreak publishes occasional special hardcopy editions on a variety of public-interest issues such as trafficking. For more information, visit www.newsbreak.com.ph
About The Asia Foundation
The Asia Foundation is a non-profit, non-governmental organization committed to the development of a peaceful, prosperous, just, and open Asia-Pacific region. The Foundation supports programs in Asia that help improve governance, law, and civil society; women’s empowerment; economic reform and development; and international relations. Drawing on more than 50 years of experience in Asia, the Foundation collaborates with private and public partners to support leadership and institutional development, exchanges, and policy research. With offices throughout Asia, an office in Washington, D.C., and its headquarters in San Francisco, the Foundation addresses these issues on both a country and regional level. In 2008, the Foundation provided more than $87 million in program support and distributed over one million books and educational materials valued at $41 million throughout Asia.
For more information, visit www.asiafoundation.org
Contact:
Steven Rood, Ph. D.
Country Representative
Tel. No.: (632)851-1466
Email: Srood@asiafound.org
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