I just found out about MTV Philippines EXIT, a campaign to fight human trafficking. MTV Philippines, Visayan Forum Foundation and the U.S. Agency for International Development are joining the fight against human trafficking by staging four FREE MTV EXIT (End Exploitation and Trafficking) concerts across the Philippines. The concert series kicked off in May at the SM MOA Concert grounds in Manila with over 30,000 supporters.

The next Philippine Tour is in Davao which is going to be tomorrow Saturday November 21st for those of you reading this in the Philippines. The event will be held at SM City Davao at 6pm hosted by MTV VJ Sib with performances by ITCHYWORMS and MOYMOY PALABOY. So don’t miss out to join the campaign against Human Trafficking!

Human trafficking
Human trafficking is defined by the United Nations as “the recruitment, transportation, and receipt of a person for sexual or economical exploitation by force, fraud, coercion, or deception” in order to make a profit. The UN estimates that at any one time there are 2.5 million trafficked victims in the world, with the majority of these victims in Asia and the Pacific. It is the second-largest illegal trade after drugs, with criminal traffickers earning over US$10 billion every year through the buying and selling of human beings. Often, victims are young men and women – the MTV demographic – who are guilty only of wanting a better life.

MTV EXIT
The MTV EXIT (End Exploitation and Trafficking) campaign is an award-winning multimedia initiative to raise awareness and increase prevention of human trafficking and exploitation. MTV EXIT was launched in Europe in 2004, in partnership with the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, Sida,and expanded across Asia with USAID in 2007. To date MTV EXIT has produced many MTV documentaries and other programming on trafficking, including Traffic: An MTV EXIT Special, presented by Lucy Liu; Inhuman Traffic, presented by Angelina Jolie; over a dozen localized language versions presented by Asian celebrities; short films; public service announcements; and animation. MTV EXIT and Radiohead collaborated on an anti-exploitation video for their song All I Need, which premiered across MTV’s global network on 1 May 2008. MTV EXIT has also established partnerships with over 100 nongovernmental organizations, distributed hundreds of thousands of anti-trafficking brochures in over 25 languages, and reached out to millions of young people through anti-trafficking messages at concerts and music festivals featuring R.E.M., Radiohead, The White Stripes, The Hives, Thievery Corporation, and hundreds of other international and local artists. For more information see www.mtvexit.org.