Sunday, October 9, 2011
IN LINE to claim uniform t-shirts for their sportsfest, the one waiting to be served is asked: “Eighteen ka man, ‘no (You’re 18)?” “Fifteen,” she replies.
To which the non-government organization worker snaps back in a light-hearted tone, “Kabalo ko 15 ang imong edad, ang imong size sa t-shirt ba (I know you are 15 years old, I am asking for your t-shirt size)!”
There should be nothing to this exchange except that the sportsfest is by prostituted women and children of Davao City and the one in line is one, at 15.
Just one day
The sportsfest held at the ampitheatre of the Brokenshire College in Madapo Hills, Davao City, is in celebration of the No to Prostitution Day last October 5.
“This is just a symbolic celebration, a day where the prostituted will not go to the streets or text their customers to peddle their bodies ,” says Jeanette L. Ampog, executive director of Talikala Inc., a non-government organization working with and for prostituted women and children in the city.
The sportsfest is a joint effort of Talikala and Lawig Bubay, the organization of the prostituted here.
Ampog says they thought of a sportsfest not just as a break from the women and children’s daily routine of selling themselves but also to impart the reality that these women and children have other abilities and capabilities.
“This is to show others that they are humans too,” she adds.
Two sets of shirts were being distributed to the Lawig Bubay members.
One reads: “Ang babae ay isang tao, siya ay hindi gamit (A woman is a human, she is not a commodity).”
The other reads: “Ang bata ay isang tao, siya ay hindi gamit (A child is a human, she is not a commodity).”
The message itself is a stark admission of the fact that more and more children are being led into prostitution, by their circumstances, by the people around them, and by the continuing commodification of women and children.
Asked what she has observed since Talikala helped organize Lawig Bubay in 1993 and the situation today, Ampog says, “The big difference is when we helped organized Lawig in 1993, we never had members as young as 12. The youngest were always between 18-19.”
Now there are… many.
Close to half
Cincy Gulosinda, 22, chairs Lawig Bubay. They have a total of 715 members all over the city, she says, of which around 40 percent are minors or those below 18 years old.
Lawig is trying to locate a 12-year-old whom they have been alerted about by fellow members a few months back. The girl was among those trading their bodies for pay around the van terminal beside Gaisano Mall, she says. They were able to talk to her, but have lost contact since. She was no longer seen at the van terminal and peer believe she may have moved out or been recruited somewhere else.
An article on the women and children of Lawig Bubay in 2009, also by Sun.Star Davao, already noted the increase in the number of minors. But in that very short span of time, what was deemed shocking then now pales in comparison today.
In that 2009 interview with then Lawig Bubay chairman Belen Antoque, she said, they had an additional membership of 30 of which 27 were minors. Of their total membership of 630 in 2009 — their ages ranging from 13 to 57 — 10 percent were minors.
Today, just two years later, Gulosinda says members who are minors now comprise 40 percent.
Gulosinda herself started when she was just 15. She was still in school then, attending classes in the morning and hanging out with friends in the afternoon until late at night, and soon took up what her friends have been earning from. She was trafficked for sex in 2008, when she was just 18. Today, she still attends hearings for the human trafficking case filed in Cebu where she was rescued; a case she would not have been able to file and attend without the help of Talikala. Being the only one of two who filed a case against what appears to be a well-financed human trafficking syndicate, Ampog says, Gulosinda is in constant threat whenever she goes there for the hearings and has to have security escorts.
In 2008, already 19, she was rescued from a “casa” in Lapu-lapu City, where she says there were as many as 200 women and children being sold to foreigners for sex; at least half of whom claimed to be from Davao.
It was hell out there, she says.
Limited meals and menstruation break
The casa, a posh looking structure inside a compound where their simple lodging facilities are also located, caters solely to foreigners. “Mga Amerkano og Hapon, bawal ang Pilipino didto (There were Americans and Japanese, the prostitution den does not accept Filipino customers).”
Housed in small rooms which they share with on or three others, depending on the number of women in residence, they had two mealtimes, during which you have to move fast and grab your share lest you will not get any. “Og mahutdan ka, wala na kay makaon (If you can’t get your share then you lose a meal).”
They are allowed to go out to buy their necessities like toiletries, clothes, costumes and make-up, but only with an escort. They use their own earnings for these necessities.
A buzzer indicates a customer, she says, thus they are all required to dress up and look their best and go to the so-called “aquarium” where they are viewed by the customers through a one-way mirror.
“Magmamadali ka na niyang mag-ayos at magsuot ng sexy na transparent (You have to make yourself presentable in the least possible time and then wear gauzy outfits),” she says.
Anyone picked has no right to refuse. The casa has guest rooms where the chosen girls are led to for in-house services.
Bar fine, or the amount paid for a woman is between P4,000 to P5,000, she says. Of this amount, they only get P500. Worse, they are only allowed a maximum of three days menstruation break. If your period goes beyond three days and thus make you not want to have sex, you are fined P500 per day.
“Kaya ganun, kahit meron ka pa, magtrabaho pa rin (Even when you still have menstruation, you would rather work),” she says.
She was rescued after three months of stay there. A 16-year-old girl was rescued with her.
Better?
Being a free-lancer here, she says, what she found most disgusting was that you have to do it with whoever picks you out. As a free-lancer, and even the girls around Central Bank, she says, they can turn down a customer.
“Doon, wala ka talagang choice (There, you do not have that choice),” she says.
Lawig Bubay also helps them in coming to terms with their situation as it provides a support group, and they themselves go around teaching fellow women on how to protect their health.
The members, too, find security in the organization as in Lawig Bubay, they find a vestige of hope for a better future whether because of appropriate information about their reproductive health and rights or because of peers who have successfully left through the help of the organization and Talikala. “Survivors” they are called.
Unattended symptoms
Both Ampog and Gulosinda say the girls who walk into this trade have similar backgrounds: children who are poor and mostly from dysfunctional families, and most of the time sexually abused as little children but who were not given justice simply because demanding justice is such a hassle.
Asked what can prevent children from falling into the same trap she fell in, Gulosinda says, the ideal set-up would be a family where parents have secure sources of livelihood so that the children will no longer think of finding a means to provide for themselves and the family. In the same way, what can bring them out of this trap are livelihood opportunities enough to sustain a family and will not force them to supplement with the sale of their bodies.
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