The real harms of prostitution

Why would we legalise what women who have experienced it call 'paid rape' and
voluntary slavery'?
What is prostitution really like for the person in it? Recently The Economist ran a
debate online about legalising prostitution. Putting the case against was San
Francisco psychologist Melissa Farley, who is also the founder of Prostitution
Research and Education. In view of the relentless campaign to legalise prostitution
on the ground that it would then be essentially harmless and a matter of choice,
MercatorNet invited Dr Farley to set out the facts of the matter as she knows them
from 15 years of research and dealings with prostituted and trafficked women.
Photo: humantrafficking.change.orgBefore we decide whether to legalise
prostitution, it is important to know what prostitution is and what it is not. It is not a
job like any other job.
In prostitution, men remove womens humanity. Buying a woman in prostitution
gives men the power to turn women into a living, breathing masturbation fantasy.
He removes her self and those qualities that define her as an individual, and for him
she becomes sexualized body parts. She acts the part of the thing he wants her to
be.
A john who was guaranteed anonymity said prostitution was like renting an organ
for ten minutes. Another man said, I use them like I might use any other amenity,
a restaurant, or a public convenience.
As shocking as these mens observations may sound to those who think prostitution
is like the movie Pretty Woman, their descriptions closely match womens
descriptions of prostitution. The women explain to us how it feels to be treated like
a rented organ. It is internally damaging. You become in your own mind what these
people do and say with you. You wonder how could you let yourself do this and why
do these people want to do this to you?
Women who prostitute have described it as paid rape and voluntary slavery.
Prostitution is sexual harassment, sexual exploitation, often worse. His payment
does not erase what we know about sexual violence, domestic violence and rape.
This understanding of the realities of prostitution by the john and the woman he
buys is at odds with the notion of prostitution as slightly unpleasant labour that
should be legalised. Whether or not it is legal, prostitution is extremely harmful for
women. Women in prostitution have the highest rates of rape and homicide of any
group of women ever studied. They are regularly physically assaulted and verbally
abused, whether they prostitute on the street or in massage parlours, brothels or
hotels.
Sexual violence and physical assault are the norm for women in legal prostitution. In
one Dutch study, 60 per cent of women in legal prostitution were physically
assaulted, 70 per cent were threatened with physical assault, 40 per cent
experienced sexual violence and 40 per cent had been coerced into legal
prostitution.

In nine countries, we found that 68 per cent of women, men and transgendered
people in prostitution had post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a prevalence that
is comparable to that of battered or raped women seeking help, and survivors of
state-sponsored torture. Across widely varying cultures on five continents the
traumatic consequences of prostitution were similar whether prostitution was legal,
tolerated, or illegal.
Yet some who may not be familiar with the sex industry believe that legalisation will
decrease the harm of prostitution, like a bandage on a wound. They ask: Wouldnt
it be at least a little bit better if it were legalised? Wouldnt there be less stigma,
and wouldnt prostitutes somehow be protected?
Underpinning laws that legalise prostitution is the belief that prostitution is
inevitable. Public statements by pimps emphasise that prostitution is here to stay,
with Dennis Hof in Reno and Heidi Fleiss in Sydney repeating the mantra that boys
will be boys. Although false, these stereotypes about men mainstream prostitution
and they are also good business strategy, relieving johns of ambivalence regarding
the social acceptability of buying sex while at the same time inviting men to spend
like suckers.
Pimps do not suddenly become nice guys because prostitution is legal. Legal
Amsterdam brothels have up to three panic buttons in every room. Why? Because
legal johns are not nice guys looking for a normal date. They regularly attempt to
rape and strangle women.
As Amsterdam began shutting down its legal brothels a few years ago, Mayor Job
Cohen acknowledged that the Dutch had been wrong about legal prostitution. It did
not make prostitution safer. Instead, he said, legal prostitution increased organised
crime. It functioned like a magnet for pimps and punters. Trafficking increased after
legal prostitution80 per cent of women in Dutch prostitution have been trafficked.
Do not believe what you see on Cathouse. They are acting. A colleague was telling
the truth about her experience of prostitution on a TV talk show. During a break in
filming, she was approached by a second woman who had been escorted in front of
the cameras by her legal Nevada pimp. Whispering, the frightened woman begged
for help, saying the pimp had coerced her to say on camera how much fun
prostitution was. Leaving behind her purse and coat so the pimp would assume she
was returning, they both ran and the woman was helped to escape.
The dilemma is not that there is no legal redress for coercion, physical assault and
rape in illegal prostitution. There are laws against those forms of violence. The
dilemma is that once in prostitution, there is no avoiding sexual harassment, sexual
exploitation, rape and acts that are the equivalent of mental torture.
What do johns say about prostitution?
You get what you pay for without the "no," a sex buyer explained.

Non-prostituting women have the right to say no. We have legal protection from
sexual harassment and sexual exploitation. But tolerating sexual abuse is the job
description for prostitution.
Its a myth that johns are harmless.
Research shows that a majority of johns refuse condoms, pay high prices to
desperately poor women to not use condoms, or rape women without condoms.
Research compared frequent and infrequent sex buyers. The men who most
frequently used women in prostitution were the most likely to have committed
sexually aggressive acts against non-prostituting women.
Although a majority of UK johns believe that most women have been lured, tricked,
or trafficked into prostitution, they buy them anyway. This finding is consistent with
another study showing that 47 per cent of US johns who responded to an online
escort advertisement were willing to buy a child despite three warnings.
According to a john interviewed for a research study, All prostitutes are exploited.
However, they also have good incomes. (Di Nicola, Cuaduro, Lombardi, & Ruspini,
2009, "Prostitution and human trafficking: Focus on clients")
Some people have made the decision that it is reasonable to expect certain women
to turn ten tricks a day in order to survive. Those women most often are poor and
most often are racially marginalised. This neocolonial economic perspective is
enshrined in a Canadian prostitution tourists comment about women in Thai
prostitution:
These girls gotta eat, dont they? Im putting bread on their plate. Im making a
contribution. Theyd starve to death unless they whored.
This john-sympathetic economic Darwinism avoids the question: Do all women have
the right to live without the sexual harassment or sexual exploitation of prostitution
or is that right reserved only for those who have sex, race or class privilege?
Which laws work, and which laws fail to stop the harms of prostitution?
All women should have the right to survive without prostituting.
Women, men, children, and the transgendered in prostitution should not be
arrested. Theres no debate on that important issue.
Lets get to the facts, not the myths, about legal prostitution. There is lots of
evidence about the negative consequences of legal and decriminalised prostitution.
Legal prostitution specifies where prostitution is permitted to take place, including
municipal tolerance zones or red-light zones. Decriminalised prostitution removes all
laws against pimping, pandering, and buying women in prostitution, and
decriminalises the person who is prostituted.

Legal and decriminalised prostitution are similar in their effects. Pimp-like, the state
collects taxes from legal prostitution. In decriminalised regimes, the old fashioned
pimps become legitimised entrepreneurs.
New Zealand passed a law in 2003 that decriminalised selling sex, buying sex, and
pimping. A Prostitution Law Review Committee (2008) reported what happened
after prostitution was decriminalised in New Zealand. Seven years after the NZ law
was passed, battles are still being waged about whose neighbourhood prostitution
will be zoned into. No one wants prostitution next door. Prostitution is zoned into the
neighbourhoods of people who cannot afford the legal fees to prevent it.
The regulation of prostitution by zoning is a physical manifestation of the same
social/psychological stigma that decriminalisation advocates allegedly want to
avoid. Whether in Turkish genelevs (walled-off multi-unit brothel complexes) or in
Nevada brothels (ringed with barbed wire or electric fencing), women in state-zoned
prostitution are physically isolated and socially rejected by the rest of society.
The social stigma of prostitution persisted five years after decriminalisation in New
Zealand, according to the Law Review Committee.
After decriminalization in NZ, violence and sexual abuse in prostitution continued as
before. The majority of sex workers felt that the law could do little about violence
that occurred and that violence was an inevitable aspect of the sex industry,
according to the Law Review Committee. After the law was passed, 35 per cent of
women in prostitution reported that they had been coerced by johns. Women in
massage parlour prostitution who were under the control of pimps reported the
highest rate of coercion. Five years after legally defining prostitution as work, the
New Zealand law was unable to change the exploitative quasi-contractual
arrangements that existed before prostitution was decriminalised. Most people in
prostitution (both indoor and street) continued to mistrust police. They did not
report violence or crimes against them to the police.
Prostitution is legal in some Australian provinces. The Australian Occupational and
Safety Codes (OSC) recommend classes in hostage negotiation skills for those in
legal prostitution, reflecting johns violence.
Trafficking is most prevalent wherever prostitution is legal or decriminalised. When
prostitution is legal, pimps operate with impunity and johns are welcomed.
Trafficking of children has increased in New Zealand since decriminalisation,
especially the trafficking of ethnic minority Maori children.
Reflecting increased organized crime since decriminalisation, Auckland gangs have
waged turf wars over control of prostitution.
Since decriminalisation street prostitution has spiraled out of control, especially in
New Zealand's largest city, Auckland. A 200-400% increase in street prostitution has
been reported.

After legalisation of prostitution in Victoria, Australia, the number of legal brothels

doubled. But the greatest expansion was in illegal prostitution. In one year there
was a 300 per cent increase in illegal brothels.
Staff at a NZ agency providing prostitution exit strategies observed that there were
twice as many johns in the street since decriminalisation. The johns were more
aggressive after prostitution was decriminalised, soliciting the agencys women staff
members. Similar post-decriminalisation increased aggression against women has
been noted among Australian johns.
Is prostitution a choice?
Arguments for legalising prostitution depend on the strength of two arguments: that
prostitution is a choice for those in it and that the harms of prostitution are
decreased if it is legalised. There is little evidence that either of these arguments
are true. But zombie theories about prostitution never seem to die no matter how
many facts we beat them down with.
Only a tiny percentage all women in prostitution are there because they choose it.
For most, prostitution is not a freely-made choice because the conditions that would
permit genuine choice are not present: physical safety, equal power with buyers,
and real alternatives.
The few who do choose prostitution are privileged by class or race or education.
They usually have options for escape. Most women in prostitution do not have
viable alternatives. They are coerced into prostitution by sex inequality, race/ethnic
inequality, and economic inequality.
Here are examples of these invisible coercions:
* The woman in India who worked in an office where she concluded that she might
as well prostitute and be paid more for the sexual harassment and abuse that was
expected of her anyway in order to keep her job. Thats not a choice.
* The teen in California who said that in her neighborhood boys grew up to be pimps
and drug dealers and girls grew up to be hos. She was the third generation of
prostituted women in her family. Prostitution more severely harms indigenous and
ethnically marginalised women because of their lack of alternatives. Thats not a
choice.
* A woman in Zambia who said that five blowjobs would pay for a bag of cornmeal
so she could feed her children. Thats not a choice.
* The First Nations survivor of prostitution in Vancouver who said, We want real
jobs, not blowjobs, See here for the rest of her 2009 speech and other writings by
survivors who have gotten out and who are supporting sisters to also escape.
* The young woman sold by her parents at 16 into a Nevada legal brothel. Ten years
later, she took six psychiatric drugs that tranquilised her so she could make it
through the day selling sex. Thats not a choice.

There is no evidence for the theory that legalisation somehow - how is never
specified - decreases the harm of prostitution.
In fact, legalisation increases trafficking, increases prostitution of children, and
increases sex buyers demands for cheaper or "unrestricted" sex acts (Sullivan,
2007, Making Sex Work: A Failed Experiment with Legalized Prostitution). Whether
prostitution is legal or illegal, research shows that the poorer she is, and the longer
shes been in prostitution, the more likely she is to experience violence. The
emotional consequences of prostitution are the same whether prostitution is legal or
illegal, and whether it happens in a brothel, a strip club, a massage parlour, or on
the street.
A decade ago, Sweden named prostitution as a form of violence against women that
fosters inequality. As a result Sweden criminalised buyers and decriminalised the
person in prostitution. Iceland, Norway, and South Korea have now passed similar
laws, with the UK passing legislation that moves in a similar direction and Israel
currently considering such a bill.
The Swedish government recently released an evaluation of the 1999 Swedish law
on prostitution much like the New Zealand Law Reform Commissions Report. The
news is better from Sweden.
In a decade, street prostitution in Sweden has decreased by 50 per cent, although it
has increased in neighbouring countries. There is no evidence that women have
moved from street to indoor prostitution in Sweden.
The intimate relationship between prostitution and trafficking is highlighted when
buyers are criminalized. Sweden now has the fewest trafficked women in the EU.
The law interferes with the international business of pimping and the practice of
buying sex.
While there was initial resistance to the Swedish law, now more than 70 per cent of
the public supports it. Women exiting prostitution use state-provided exit services.
Not surprisingly, those who have extricated themselves from prostitution take a
positive view of criminalisation, while those who are still exploited in prostitution are
critical of the ban.
Prostitution should not be legalised because it cant be fixed, only
abolished. More than 90 per cent of those in it tell us that they want
escape from prostitution. In order to escape they need housing,
education, jobs that provide a sustainable income, health care and
emotional support. We should all be working on providing women with
alternatives to prostitution.
See
more
at:
http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/the_real_harms_of_prostitution#sthash.g
GwAMAA2.dpuf

PRO Legal Prostitution

CON Legal Prostitution

1. Victimless Crime?

PRO: "Prostitution should not be a crime.

Prostitutes are not committing an inherently
harmful act. While the spread of disease and
other detriments are possible in the practice of
prostitution, criminalization is a sure way of
exacerbating rather than addressing such
effects. We saw this quite clearly in the time of
alcohol prohibition in this country.
...What makes prostitution a 'victimless crime' in
the sense that no one is necessarily harmed by it
is that there are consenting adults involved."
Sherry F. Colb, JD
Judge Frederick Lacey Scholar at Rutgers Law
School
E-mail to ProCon.org
Dec. 17, 2006

CON: "MYTH 2 - Prostitution is a victimless

crime.
Prostitution creates a setting whereby crimes
against men, women, and children become a
commercial enterprise.... It is an assault when
he/she forces a prostitute to engage in
sadomasochistic sex scenes. When a pimp
compels a prostitute to submit to sexual
demands as a condition of employment, it is
exploitation, sexual harassment, or rape -- acts
that are based on the prostitute's compliance
rather than her consent. The fact that a pimp or
customer gives money to a prostitute for
submitting to these acts does not alter the fact
that child sexual abuse, rape, and/or battery
occurs; it merely redefines these crimes as
prostitution."
National Center for Missing and Exploited

Children
Female Juvenile Prostitution: Problem and
Response
1992
2. Prostitution & Free Choice
PRO: "We chose sex work after we did a lot of
things we couldn't stand. Sex work is better. For
me, sex work isn't my first choice of paying work.
It just happens to be the best alternative
available. It's better than being president of
someone else's corporation. It's better than being
a secretary. It is the most honest work I know of."
Veronica Monet
Prostitute and Author
in Gauntlet Magazine
1994

CON: "The ILO [International Labour

Organization] report admits that most women
'choose' prostitution for economic reasons.
Surely no one can argue that this is free choice
any more than the cattle in the squeeze chute
choose to go to their death."
Diane Post, JD
Attorney and Human Rights Activist
"Legalizing Prostitution: A Systematic Rebuttal"
in the journaloff our backs
July 1999

3. Morality of Prostitution
PRO: "Why is it illegal to charge for what can be
freely dispensed? Sex work is no more moral or
immoral than the chocolate or distilling
industries."
Catherine La Croix
Founder of Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics
(COYOTE) chapter in Seattle
"Love For Sale" in the magazine Internet
Underground
Oct. 1996

CON: "Prostitution as an institution is evil. It

doesn't matter if it is the 'world's oldest
profession', it is still wrong."
Dorn Checkley
Director of the Pittsburg Coalition Against
Pornography
"Legalized Prostitution?" on Wholehearted.org
Jan. 22, 2007

4. Human Trafficking
PRO: "Criminalizing the sex industry creates
ideal conditions for rampant exploitation and
abuse of sex workers...[I]t is believed that
trafficking in women, coercion and exploitation
can only be stopped if the existence of
prostitution is recognized and the legal and social
rights of prostitutes are guaranteed."
Marjan Wijers
Chair of the European Commission's Expert
Group on Trafficking in Human Beings
in her article in the book Global Sex Workers
1998

CON: "I believe that we will never succeed in

combating trafficking in women if we do not
simultaneously work to abolish prostitution and
the sexual exploitation of women and children.
Particularly in light of the fact that many women
in prostitution in countries that have legalised
prostitution are originally victims of trafficking in
women."
Margareta Winberg
Former Deputy Prime Minister of Sweden
Speech in Stockholm
Nov. 5-6, 2002

5. Prostitution & Violence

PRO: "Decriminalization would better protect

people in the sex industry from violence and
abuse.
...Police cannot and do not simultaneously seek
to arrest prostitutes and protect them from
violence.... Indeed, women describe being told,
'What did you expect?' by police officers who
refused to investigate acts of violence
perpetrated against women whom they knew
engaged in prostitution. The consequences of
such attitudes are tragic: Gary Ridgway said that
he killed prostitutes because he knew he would
not be held accountable. The tragedy is that he
was right - he confessed to the murders of 48
women, committed over nearly twenty years.
That is truly criminal."
Melissa Ditmore, PhD
Coordinator of the Global Network of Sex Work
Projects
Washington Post's PostGlobal website
Feb. 28, 2007

CON: "Regardless of prostitution's status (legal,

illegal or decriminalized) or its physical location
(strip club, massage parlor, street,
escort/home/hotel), prostitution is extremely
dangerous for women. Homicide is a frequent
cause of death....
It is a cruel lie to suggest that decriminalization or
legalization will protect anyone in prostitution. It
is not possible to protect someone whose source
of income exposes them to the likelihood of
being raped on average once a week."
Melissa Farley, PhD
Founding Director of the Prostitution Research
and Education
"Prostitution Is Sexual Violence" in the
Psychiatric Times
Oct. 2004

6. HIV/AIDS Prevention
PRO: "For HIV/AIDS prevention to succeed, the
conditions of risk have to change. The context legal, social, economic - of sex work has to
change, with repeal of criminal laws, access to
visas and work permits, freedom of movement
and association, and occupational safety and
health regulations, to reduce the imposition of
risk from above. Until then, it will be heroic,
strong individuals that can insist on safe
behaviours, leaving those who are less heroic,
those who are more timid and afraid, to suffer the
consequences of the context of risk."
Priscilla Alexander
Co-founder of the National Task Force on
Prostitution
"Contextual Risk Versus Risk Behaviour"
in Research for Sex Work
2001

CON: "Even if a prostitute is being tested every

week for HIV, she will test negative for at least
the first 4-6 weeks and possibly the first 12
weeks after being infected.... This means that
while the test is becoming positive and the
results are becoming known, that prostitute may
expose up to 630 clients to HIV. This is under the
best of circumstances with testing every week
and a four-week window period. It also assumes
that the prostitute will quit working as soon as he
or she finds out the test is HIV positive, which is
highly unlikely. This is not the best approach for
actually reducing harm. Instead, in order to slow
the global spread of HIV/AIDS we should focus
our efforts on abolishing prostitution."
Jeffrey J. Barrows, D.O.
Health Consultant on Human Trafficking for the
Christian Medical Association
"HIV and Prostitution: What's the Answer?" The
Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity website
Sep. 9, 2005

7. Prevalence of Rape

PRO: "It is estimated that if prostitution were

legalized in the United States, the rape rate
would decrease by roughly 25% for a decrease
of approximately 25,000 rapes per year...."
Kirby R. Cundiff, PhD
Associate Professor of Finance at Northeastern
State University
"Prostitution and Sex Crimes"
Apr. 8, 2004

CON: "Prostitution cannot eliminate rape when it

is itself bought rape. The connection between
rape and prostitution is that women are turned
into objects for men's sexual use; they can be
either bought or stolen. A culture in which women
can be bought for use is one in which rape
flourishes[.]"
Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW)
"Frequently Asked Questions About Prostitution"
on the CATW-Australia Website
Mar. 8, 2007

8. Prostitution as a Legitimate Business

PRO: "Sex work is legitimate work and problems
within the industry are not inherent in the work
itself. It is vulnerability, not sex work, which
creates victims. Sex workers should enjoy the
same labour rights as other workers and the
same human rights as other people."
Ana Lopes, PhD
President of Britain's General Union (GMB) Sex
Workers Branch
"Stigmatising Sex Workers" in the Chartist
Mar. 2006

CON: "One needs to completely rid oneself of

the voracity for cash to see that prostitution,
although legalized, can never be a legitimate
business because it will always be associated
with crime, corruption, class, mass sexual
exploitation and human trafficking."
Virada Somswasdi, JD
President of the Foundation for Women, Law
and Rural Development (FORWARD)
Speech at Cornell Law School
Mar. 9, 2004

9. Prostitution as a Career Option

PRO: "Prostitution is not merely an exchange of
sexual favors; it is a financial exchange. At this
point, individualist feminists rise to defend the
free market as well as a woman's self-ownership.
This is expressed by the question: 'Prostitution is
a combination of sex and the free market. Which
one are you against?'
Feminists of all stripes should speak with one
voice to demand the safety of these women by
granting them the same protection as any other
woman can expect. Only decriminalization can
provide this."

CON: "Some prostitution defenders argue that

prostitution is an acceptable solution to poverty....
What they mean, but do not say, is that
prostitution is an acceptable solution for women
living in poverty. Seldom do we see proposals
that poor men should make their way out of
poverty by welcoming the insertion of penises
and other objects into them on a regular basis or
dance naked on a stage in front of ogling and
masturbating males.

The prostitution industry exploits to its advantage

the fact that most women and children who are in
Wendy McElroy
prostitution come from the most oppressed and
Research Fellow at the Independent Institute vulnerable groups in society."
"'Solutions' to Prostitution" on Ifeminist.com
Feb. 13, 2001
Gunilla S. Ekberg
Special Advisor on prostitution and trafficking in
women at the Swedish Division for Gender

Equality
Speech in Stockholm
Nov. 2002
10. Former Prostitutes' Viewpoints on Prostitution
PRO: "Decriminalization is not at all a solution to
every injustice that exists in the sex industry; it is
a starting point. If prostitution were not an
underground activity it would allow us to much
more effectively address the serious problems of
forced prostitution and juvenile prostitution and
the other abuses which are part of an industry
that operates completely in the shadows. ...
[T]here are many who... want other options and
they should be given alternatives and assistance.
And then there are also those who organize for
their rights and are not quitting at the moment
and they should be afforded options, their rights,
and self-determination as well. Whatever ills are
attendant to prostitution, criminalization of
prostitutes exacerbates the abuse."
Carol Leigh
Founder of Bay Area Sex Workers Advocacy
Network (BAYSWAN) and former prostitute
"Justice Talking" on National Public Radio (NPR)
Mar. 4, 2002

PRO Legal Prostitution

CON: "As long as we point the finger away from

ourselves, away from the institutions that blame
and criminalize women and children for their own
rape, sexual abuse, trafficking and slavery, away
from the men who we normalize as - Johns, and as long as we disconnect adult prostitution
and the exploitation of children and disconnect
prostitution and trafficking in human beings for
the purposes of rape and sex slavery; then we
are to blame and we have assisted in creating
well-funded transnational criminal networks dollar by dollar."
Norma Hotaling
Executive Director of the Standing Against
Global Exploitation (SAGE) Project and former
prostitute
Testimony to U.S. Congress
Apr. 28, 2005

CON Legal Prostitution

The real harms of prostitution

Before we decide whether to legalise prostitution, it is important to know what

prostitution is and what it is not. It is not a job like any other job.
In prostitution, men remove women's humanity. Buying a woman in prostitution
gives men the power to turn women into a living, breathing masturbation fantasy.

He removes her self and those qualities that define her as an individual, and for him
she becomes sexualized body parts. She acts the part of the thing he wants her to
be.
A john who was guaranteed anonymity said prostitution was like "renting an organ
for ten minutes". Another man said, "I use them like I might use any other amenity,
a restaurant, or a public convenience."
As shocking as these men's observations may sound to those who think prostitution
is like the movie Pretty Woman, their descriptions closely match women's
descriptions of prostitution. The women explain to us how it feels to be treated like
a rented organ. "It is internally damaging. You become in your own mind what these
people do and say with you. You wonder how could you let yourself do this and why
do these people want to do this to you?"
Women who prostitute have described it as "paid rape" and "voluntary slavery".
Prostitution is sexual harassment, sexual exploitation, often worse. His payment
does not erase what we know about sexual violence, domestic violence and rape.
This understanding of the realities of prostitution by the john and the woman he
buys is at odds with the notion of prostitution as slightly unpleasant labour that
should be legalised. Whether or not it is legal, prostitution is extremely harmful for
women. Women in prostitution have the highest rates of rape and homicide of any
group of women ever studied. They are regularly physically assaulted and verbally
abused, whether they prostitute on the street or in massage parlours, brothels or
hotels.
Sexual violence and physical assault are the norm for women in legal prostitution. In
one Dutch study, 60 per cent of women in legal prostitution were physically
assaulted, 70 per cent were threatened with physical assault, 40 per cent
experienced sexual violence and 40 per cent had been coerced into legal
prostitution.
In nine countries, we found that 68 per cent of women, men and transgendered
people in prostitution had post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a prevalence that
is comparable to that of battered or raped women seeking help, and survivors of
state-sponsored torture. Across widely varying cultures on five continents the
traumatic consequences of prostitution were similar whether prostitution was legal,
tolerated, or illegal.
Yet some who may not be familiar with the sex industry believe that legalisation will
decrease the harm of prostitution, like a bandage on a wound. They ask: "Wouldn't
it be at least a little bit better if it were legalised? Wouldn't there be less stigma, and
wouldn't prostitutes somehow be protected?"
Underpinning laws that legalise prostitution is the belief that prostitution is
inevitable. Public statements by pimps emphasise that prostitution is here to stay,
with Dennis Hof in Reno and Heidi Fleiss in Sydney repeating the mantra that "boys
will be boys". Although false, these stereotypes about men mainstream prostitution
and they are also good business strategy, relieving johns of ambivalence regarding

the social acceptability of buying sex while at the same time inviting men to spend
like suckers.
Pimps do not suddenly become nice guys because prostitution is legal. Legal
Amsterdam brothels have up to three panic buttons in every room. Why? Because
legal johns are not nice guys looking for a normal date. They regularly attempt to
rape and strangle women.
As Amsterdam began shutting down its legal brothels a few years ago, Mayor Job
Cohen acknowledged that the Dutch had been wrong about legal prostitution. It did
not make prostitution safer. Instead, he said, legal prostitution increased organised
crime. It functioned like a magnet for pimps and punters. Trafficking increased after
legal prostitution 80 per cent of women in Dutch prostitution have been trafficked
.
Do not believe what you see on Cathouse. They are acting. A colleague was telling
the truth about her experience of prostitution on a TV talk show. During a break in
filming, she was approached by a second woman who had been escorted in front of
the cameras by her legal Nevada pimp. Whispering, the frightened woman begged
for help, saying the pimp had coerced her to say on camera how much fun
prostitution was. Leaving behind her purse and coat so the pimp would assume she
was returning, they both ran and the woman was helped to escape.
The dilemma is not that there is no legal redress for coercion, physical assault and
rape in illegal prostitution. There are laws against those forms of violence. The
dilemma is that once in prostitution, there is no avoiding sexual harassment, sexual
exploitation, rape and acts that are the equivalent of mental torture.
What do johns say about prostitution?
You get what you pay for without the "no," a sex buyer explained.
Non-prostituting women have the right to say "no." We have legal protection from
sexual harassment and sexual exploitation. But tolerating sexual abuse is the job
description for prostitution.
It's a myth that johns are harmless.
Research shows that a majority of johns refuse condoms, pay high prices to
desperately poor women to not use condoms, or rape women without condoms.
Research compared frequent and infrequent sex buyers. The men who most
frequently used women in prostitution were the most likely to have committed
sexually aggressive acts against non-prostituting women.
Do all women have the right to live without the sexual harassment or sexual
exploitation of prostitution or is that right reserved only for those who have sex,
race or class privilege?

Although a majority of UK johns believe that most women have been lured, tricked,
or trafficked into prostitution, they buy them anyway. This finding is consistent with
another study showing that 47 per cent of US johns who responded to an online
escort advertisement were willing to buy a child despite three warnings.
According to a john interviewed for a research study, "All prostitutes are exploited.
However, they also have good incomes." (Di Nicola, Cuaduro, Lombardi, & Ruspini,
2009, "Prostitution and human trafficking: Focus on clients")
Some people have made the decision that it is reasonable to expect certain women
to turn ten tricks a day in order to survive. Those women most often are poor and
most often are racially marginalised. This neocolonial economic perspective is
enshrined in a Canadian prostitution tourist's comment about women in Thai
prostitution:
These girls gotta eat, don't they? I'm putting bread on their plate. I'm making a
contribution. They'd starve to death unless they whored.
This john-sympathetic economic Darwinism avoids the question: Do all women have
the right to live without the sexual harassment or sexual exploitation of prostitution
or is that right reserved only for those who have sex, race or class privilege?
Which laws work, and which laws fail to stop the harms of prostitution?
All women should have the right to survive without prostituting.
Women, men, children, and the transgendered in prostitution should not be
arrested. There's no debate on that important issue.
Let's get to the facts, not the myths, about legal prostitution. There is lots of
evidence about the negative consequences of legal and decriminalised prostitution.
Legal prostitution specifies where prostitution is permitted to take place, including
municipal tolerance zones or red-light zones. Decriminalised prostitution removes all
laws against pimping, pandering, and buying women in prostitution, and
decriminalises the person who is prostituted.
Legal and decriminalised prostitution are similar in their effects. Pimp-like, the state
collects taxes from legal prostitution. In decriminalised regimes, the old fashioned
pimps become legitimised entrepreneurs.
New Zealand passed a law in 2003 that decriminalised selling sex, buying sex, and
pimping. A Prostitution Law Review Committee (2008) reported what happened
after prostitution was decriminalised in New Zealand. Seven years after the NZ law
was passed, battles are still being waged about whose neighbourhood prostitution
will be zoned into. No one wants prostitution next door. Prostitution is zoned into the
neighbourhoods of people who cannot afford the legal fees to prevent it.

The regulation of prostitution by zoning is a physical manifestation of the same

social/psychological stigma that decriminalisation advocates allegedly want to
avoid. Whether in Turkish genelevs (walled-off multi-unit brothel complexes) or in
Nevada brothels (ringed with barbed wire or electric fencing), women in state-zoned
prostitution are physically isolated and socially rejected by the rest of society.
The social stigma of prostitution persisted five years after decriminalisation in New
Zealand, according to the Law Review Committee.
After decriminalization in NZ, violence and sexual abuse in prostitution continued as
before. "The majority of sex workers felt that the law could do little about violence
that occurred" and that violence was an inevitable aspect of the sex industry,
according to the Law Review Committee. After the law was passed, 35 per cent of
women in prostitution reported that they had been coerced by johns. Women in
massage parlour prostitution who were under the control of pimps reported the
highest rate of coercion. Five years after legally defining prostitution as work, the
New Zealand law was unable to change the exploitative quasi-contractual
arrangements that existed before prostitution was decriminalised. Most people in
prostitution (both indoor and street) continued to mistrust police. They did not
report violence or crimes against them to the police.
Prostitution is legal in some Australian provinces. The Australian Occupational and
Safety Codes (OSC) recommend classes in hostage negotiation skills for those in
legal prostitution, reflecting johns' violence.
Trafficking is most prevalent wherever prostitution is legal or decriminalised. When
prostitution is legal, pimps operate with impunity and johns are welcomed.
Trafficking of children has increased in New Zealand since decriminalisation,
especially the trafficking of ethnic minority Maori children.
Reflecting increased organized crime since decriminalisation, Auckland gangs have
waged turf wars over control of prostitution.
Since decriminalisation street prostitution has spiraled out of control, especially in
New Zealand's largest city, Auckland. A 200-400% increase in street prostitution has
been reported.
After legalisation of prostitution in Victoria, Australia, the number of legal brothels
doubled. But the greatest expansion was in illegal prostitution. In one year there
was a 300 per cent increase in illegal brothels.
Staff at a NZ agency providing prostitution exit strategies observed that there were
twice as many johns in the street since decriminalisation. The johns were more
aggressive after prostitution was decriminalised, soliciting the agency's women staff
members. Similar post-decriminalisation increased aggression against women has
been noted among Australian johns.
Is prostitution a choice?

Arguments for legalising prostitution depend on the strength of two arguments: that
prostitution is a choice for those in it and that the harms of prostitution are
decreased if it is legalised. There is little evidence that either of these arguments
are true. But zombie theories about prostitution never seem to die no matter how
many facts we beat them down with.
Only a tiny percentage all women in prostitution are there because they choose it.
For most, prostitution is not a freely-made choice because the conditions that would
permit genuine choice are not present: physical safety, equal power with buyers,
and real alternatives.
The few who do choose prostitution are privileged by class or race or education.
They usually have options for escape. Most women in prostitution do not have
viable alternatives. They are coerced into prostitution by sex inequality, race/ethnic
inequality, and economic inequality.
Here are examples of these invisible coercions:
More than 90 per cent of those in it tell us that they want escape from prostitution.
* The woman in India who worked in an office where she concluded that she might
as well prostitute and be paid more for the sexual harassment and abuse that was
expected of her anyway in order to keep her job. That's not a choice.
* The teen in California who said that in her neighborhood boys grew up to be pimps
and drug dealers and girls grew up to be hos. She was the third generation of
prostituted women in her family. Prostitution more severely harms indigenous and
ethnically marginalised women because of their lack of alternatives. That's not a
choice.
* A woman in Zambia who said that five blowjobs would pay for a bag of cornmeal
so she could feed her children. That's not a choice.
* The First Nations survivor of prostitution in Vancouver who said, "We want real
jobs, not blowjobs," See here for the rest of her 2009 speech and other writings by
survivors who have gotten out and who are supporting sisters to also escape.
* The young woman sold by her parents at 16 into a Nevada legal brothel. Ten years
later, she took six psychiatric drugs that tranquilised her so she could make it
through the day selling sex. That's not a choice.
There is no evidence for the theory that legalisation somehow how is never
specified decreases the harm of prostitution.
In fact, legalisation increases trafficking, increases prostitution of children, and
increases sex buyers' demands for cheaper or "unrestricted" sex acts (Sullivan,
2007, "Making Sex Work: A Failed Experiment with Legalized Prostitution"). Whether
prostitution is legal or illegal, research shows that the poorer she is, and the longer
she's been in prostitution, the more likely she is to experience violence. The
emotional consequences of prostitution are the same whether prostitution is legal or

illegal, and whether it happens in a brothel, a strip club, a massage parlour, or on

the street.
A decade ago, Sweden named prostitution as a form of violence against women that
fosters inequality. As a result Sweden criminalised buyers and decriminalised the
person in prostitution. Iceland, Norway, and South Korea have now passed similar
laws, with the UK passing legislation that moves in a similar direction and Israel
currently considering such a bill.
The Swedish government recently released an evaluation of the 1999 Swedish law
on prostitution much like the New Zealand Law Reform Commission's Report. The
news is better from Sweden.
In a decade, street prostitution in Sweden has decreased by 50 per cent, although it
has increased in neighbouring countries. There is no evidence that women have
moved from street to indoor prostitution in Sweden.
The intimate relationship between prostitution and trafficking is highlighted when
buyers are criminalized. Sweden now has the fewest trafficked women in the EU.
The law interferes with the international business of pimping and the practice of
buying sex.
While there was initial resistance to the Swedish law, now more than 70 per cent of
the public supports it. Women exiting prostitution use state-provided exit services.
Not surprisingly, "those who have extricated themselves from prostitution take a
positive view of criminalisation, while those who are still exploited in prostitution are
critical of the ban."
Prostitution should not be legalised because it can't be fixed, only abolished. More
than 90 per cent of those in it tell us that they want escape from prostitution. In
order to escape they need housing, education, jobs that provide a sustainable
income, health care and emotional support. We should all be working on providing
women with alternatives to prostitution.

PROSTITUTION IN THE PHILIPPINES

Even though it is widely practiced, prostitution is illegal in the Philippines. There is
an organized movement to make prostitution a legal activity in the Philippines. By
one estimate a half a million women prostitute themselves.
There are basically three kinds of prostitutes in the Philippines: 1) those that work
out of casas, or brothels, and are employed by pimps or brothel owners: 2) those
who work in bars, karaokes and hotels, who are usually controlled by the owners of
the establishment where they work; and 3) freelancers, who work the streets.
Brothels are often disguised as restaurants.
Most of the men who use prostitutes in the Philippines are locals not foreigners. You
would not get this impression by visiting one of the better known red light districts.
Local tend to use community-, neighborhood- and town- based brotherl and sex
workers. In Angeles City, near Clark Air base, there is one street with bars for
foreigners on one side, and bars for locals on the other.
Many prostitutes work for pimps. One Filipinos social worker in Cebu told the Japan
Times, There are two type of pimps. The Amou, or maintainers, who recruit and
take care of the girls, and make sure they do not run away. They also push drugs on
the girls. The Iti, or wild ducks, chase customers, and bring them to the girls.
Former prostitute Liza Gonzales told the Philippines Inquirer, Women in this field
are often looked at as sinners and home wreckers. But we are not criminals We
are actually victims, Gonzales said. Some are victims of rape or incest. Some are
girls from rural areas who were fooled by illegal recruiters We are victims of
different circumstances, but we all fell into prostitution, she said. [Source: Rima
Jessamine M. Granali, Philippine Daily Inquirer, September 26, 2011 /*\]
The police arguably do more to abet prostitution than stop it. One sex worker told
the Philippine Inquirer: When cops like the apprehended woman, she is forced to

have sex with them. Nowadays, kotong (bribe) ranges from P3,000 to P4,500,
and transactions begin even before they reach the precinct, she said. /*\
Transvestites also participate in prostitution, especially with unwary foreigners.
Male homosexuals and child prostitutes who created Asias reputation for sex
tourism are concentrated in major metropolitan cities.
Early History of Prostitution in the Philippines
Dr. Jose Florante J. Leyson wrote in the Encyclopedia of Sexuality: Tribal wars
between the aborigines in the Philippine islands turned the vanquished into slaves
for labor or cannibalism, but not sexual slaves. When Chinese merchants started
trading with the inhabitants of the archipelago in 960 C.E., they intermarried with
native women, but did not sexually exploit the women. With the advent of Spanish
colonists in the late 1500s, a flourishing slave trade was established between the
Philippines, the Caribbean, and Spain. Anecdotal reports revealed that some Filipina
slaves were sold as exotic sex objects or prostitutes to European brothels. When
Pope Gregory XIV abolished slavery in the Philippines in 1591, middle-class
Europeans started to immigrate to the archipelago, but the sexual exploitation of
Filipinas by the Spanish colonists continued. [Source: Jose Florante J. Leyson, M.D.,
Encyclopedia of Sexuality www2.hu-berlin.de/sexology, 2001 |~|]
During World War 11 (1941-1944), the Japanese Imperial Army forced Philippine
women from Manila and surrounding towns to serve as comfort girls (military
prostitutes) to provide sexual favors to all Japanese soldiers serving in the
Philippines and in the Pacific region. In the 1990s, with international (legal) backing,
these comfort girls were partially compensated for their humiliation and moral
sufferings. When the American troops liberated the Philippines from Japanese
imperialism in October 1945, many American soldiers left illegitimate Amerasian
children behind. The mothers of these children and their Amerasian children were
social outcasts. In order for these mothers to survive, they became part-time
prostitutes in the rural areas for single laborers and traveling salesmen and in the
cities with all kinds of customers. |~|
Impact of the U.S. Military and the Vietnam War on the Sex Trade in the Philippines
According to government figures, more than 10.4 million Filipinos live and work
overseas, taking jobs ranging from low-skill domestic work in the Middle East and
Hong Kong to jobs as emergency-room nurses in Canada and Europe. Most Filipinos
who go overseas for work are sent to Middle Eastern countries, often laboring in
difficult and dangerous conditions in order to send money to their families in the
Philippines.
In 1947, President Roxas signed a military agreement granting twenty-two military
bases to the United States. In the following year, the two largest U.S. military bases
in the Far East, the Naval Subic Bay and Clark Air Force Base, were established
north of Manila. Angeles City, located near Clark Air Force Base, later became the
Mecca of Sex Trade, the military adult-entertainment capital of the Philippines,

with every variety of prostitution, exotic bars, pornography, and sex tourism
conceivable. [Source: Jose Florante J. Leyson, M.D., Encyclopedia of Sexuality
www2.hu-berlin.de/sexology, 2001 |~|]
The origin of the sex trade in Thailand and the Philippines as it exits today has
origins in the Vietnam War when soldiers and navy men, that before this period had
a reputation of being gentlemen, found themselves in an unwinnable war and
needed a release from the stress. In their time off they caroused bars in Bangkok,
Saigon and Manila and girls attracted by money came to meet the demand.
In his book Fall From Glory, Gregory L Vistica wrote, "respect for women was pretty
much non-existent at Subic Bay. The girls working bars in the pasties and G-strings
were 'hostitutes' and 'L.B.F.M.'s (little Brown F------- Machines). The Navy tacitly
sanctioned this trade. Commanding officers used a formula to decide when to order
troops to stop having sex with local prostitutes: 30 daysthe normal course of
treatment for venereal diseasebefore they arrived home."
"In the mid-'70s, the brass prepared a film called "Sex and the Naval Aviator," to
explain to wives the intense pressure on pilots, to rationalize their need for physical
release after they had endured so much under fire. But the production was deemed
to embarrassing and was never released."
Book: Fall From Glory by Gregory L Vistica (Simon & Schuster, 1996)
Modern Prostitution in the Philippines
Dr. Jose Florante J. Leyson wrote in the Encyclopedia of Sexuality: With the advent
of information technology and global travel, the old part-time prostitutes have
moved to the big cities. Prostitution survives because of poverty, the
commercialization of human relations, and the sustained carnal demand. Although
for different reasons, all social classes made their contributions to the trade in
sexual services. The rich are looking for entertainment and diversity of sexual
practices that they would never dare to ask from their wives. These respectable
matrons are assigned by society only to bear and raise children, manage
households (sometimes businesses), and organize social activities. The out-of-town
students, immigrant workers, and wayward youths may be looking for their first
sexual experiences and to combat the loneliness of being separated from their
family for the first time. The poor frequent the brothels to affirm their masculinity by
using many women or to relieve their loneliness. [Source: Jose Florante J. Leyson,
M.D., Encyclopedia of Sexuality www2.hu-berlin.de/sexology, 2001 |~|]
As in most other countries, there are three types of prostitutes or sex working girls
in the Philippines: streetwalkers, entertainment girls (hostitutes), and call girls or
high-class prostitutes. Streetwalkers are not common, are usually self-employed,
and many have pimps. Their safety is at jeopardy on the streets. The majority of the
prostitutes fall under the category of entertainment girls. These hostitutes include
bar girls, nightclub hostesses (waitresses), masseuses, exotic dancers, and those
that work in brothels. They are usually business employees and have contact
managers (sophisticated pimps). Their safety is secure because they work inside an

establishment. However, they cannot refuse clients who are produced by agencies
and their managers. They cannot set the prices for their services. Some massage
parlors are commercial fronts for prostitutes who offer their services from oral sex to
regular intercourse ($25 to $65 US). |~|
Call girls comprise approximate about a third of the female sex-worker population.
Self-employed or autonomous, they usually do not have managers. They advertise
their services in specialized magazines disguised as escort services for
sophisticated gentlemen and sometimes ladies. Hostitutes and call girls advertise
their services through word of mouth, by taxi drivers, bar bouncers, club
managers/owners, and hotel bell captains. These agents receive part of the price in
exchange for referring clients. In the large sophisticated hotels, the bell captain may
have an album with pictures of different prostitutes from which guests may choose.
In 1997, a new phenomenon emerged, the Japosakis, Filipina hostitutes who return
home from sex work in Japan and continue serving their Japanese special clientele
or sugar daddies on their periodic business trips to the archipelago. Recently,
there are also reports of an increasing number of gigallos or toy boys who provide
escort services and pleasures for lonely matrons and wealthy widows. |~|
Government Monitoring of Prostitute in the Philippines
Dr. Jose Florante J. Leyson wrote in the Encyclopedia of Sexuality: Although
prostitution is still illegal, Filipino society believes that some regulation is always
needed, based on the premise that prostitution is regulated in order to minimize the
damage to society. Local city councils may require filing an application with the city
to establish a brothel, indicating the location for legal reasons and/or tax purposes.
Local authorities may also restrict brothels to certain areas and regulate any signs
that would identify it as a brothel. Prostitutes cannot reside anywhere other than at
the brothel itself, which is her official domicile. Brothels also have to have a
bedroom for each working woman. The women cannot show themselves at the
balconies or in a window, nor can they solicit in the streets. In order to work in a
brothel, a woman has to register with the sanitaryhealth authorities (Bureau of
Health). The authorities will check whether she is a victim of deceit or coercion and
advise her that help and assistance is available from legal authorities. [Source: Jose
Florante J. Leyson, M.D., Encyclopedia of Sexuality www2.hu-berlin.de/sexology,
2001 |~|]
Each prostitute is given a sanitary notebook with her picture, personal data,
registration number (if any), and the main articles of the decree that concern her
rights as a provider of a service. Her rights include being free to stay or quit the
brothel in which she lives and works, debts cannot be used to compel her to stay in
a given brothel, and no one can subject her to any abuse. Each prostitute has to
undergo mandatory monthly medical examinations for sexually transmitted
diseases (STDs). If an STD is diagnosed, the brothel pays for medical treatment. The
sex worker must show her sanitary notebook to any customer that asks to see it.
The manager of the brothel cannot accept any prostitute-candidate or applicant
who has not first registered and passed a medical examination. The manager also
has to report immediately to the sanitary authorities whenever a prostitute is ill, be
this an STD or non-sexual disease. |~|

It is easy to imagine the rampant corruption that this naive attempt to protect
customers and suppliers of contractual sex alike has produced. Police protection is
bought, violations are ignored, and politicians and judges are bribed, often on the
pretext of protecting the free practice of a fully consensual sex by the client and sex
worker. In reality, this law and its application or lack thereof does little to protect the
health of the women and their clients. The women have no protection from
customers already infected. The prostitutes can request that their clients wear
condoms, but cannot demand the performance of safe sex practices. The clients are
not subject to compulsory medical control, and many may be infected but not
show any symptoms while others suffer in silence and continue practicing unsafe
sex with other prostitutes, lovers, and even wives. |~|
Manila's Red Light District
The heart of Manila's red light district is on the Avenue de Pilar, a street lined with
karaoke bars and sleazy night clubs catering primarily to Japanese, Korean,
American, European and Australian male sex tourists. The hookers and sidewalk
touts are ferocious, practically wrestling potential customers into their bars or
hotels. Inside the bars, girls in black and red negligees do bored and uninspired
dances in front of an audience that looks like humanity's version of toxic waste.
Many of the girls are barely in (not of out) their teens. Some paint their face with
garish make-up to look older. Others look scared and as if they be more comfortable
playing with dolls than administering oral sex. When asked, most of these girls will
say they are 20 even though most likely they are much younger than that. The
government has gone through the trouble of issuing identification that indicate the
girls dont have AIDS or venereal diseases. Many of the cards however are
counterfeit.
In 1989, I was at one bar on the Avenue de Pilar at closing time. Unleashed from
the pretense of their trade, the girls finally got a chance act their age. While they
placed chairs on tables and mopped the floor they giggled, danced and sang to
sappy Tagalog songs playing on the juke box. My friend and I did a couple of slow
dances with the girls standing on our feet. The feeling was more fatherly than
sexual. The scene was so wholesome that all that was missing was a pillow fight.
The night was like a double feature of "Night of the Living Dead" and "Ozzie and
Harriet."
Prostitutes, Strikes and Money in the Philippines
Some prostitutes like their jobs because the money is good. Many bar workers and
prostitutes staged protests in 1991 an 1992 against the closing of Subic navy base.
A sex worker who worked at the Pussycat Club in Olngapo told Newsweek she began
work at a bar where she was paid once cent on each bottle of beer she sold and $8
for each sailor she had sex with. In the club you pretend. You pretend youre
happy. She gave birth to an Amerasian son and was back at work 10 days later.

A typical Filipina prostitute begins working in her teens and usually retires before
she reaches her late 20s. If she gets pregnant she has to quit or get an abortion.
Most do the latter. Many take antibiotics as a preventative measure against sexually
transmitted diseases but take them so long their resistance is reduced and they get
sick a lot.
The children of three Filipina prostitutes were given $35 million each because they
were fathered by DHL founder Larry Hillblom, who liked to hang out Filipino bars and
died in plane crash and left behind a fortune of $550 million. One of the Filipina
prostitutes claimed she met Hillblom in a Manila-area nightclub in October 1994 and
said the tycoon was drawn to her because she was a virgin and took care of her
after she got pregnant. The children of the girls were linked to Hillblom by DNA
samples taken from a mole that was his that was removed at a San Francisco
hospital.
Sex Tourism in the Philippines
In the 1980s, jets planes full of Japanese men arrived in Thailand and the
Philippines on per-paid sex tours that included airfare, accommodations, transfers
and a local girl waiting for them in their room. Organized sex tourism doesn't really
exist any more. Most sex tourists are individuals, groups of friends or couples.
In the early 2000s, Dr. Jose Florante J. Leyson wrote in the Encyclopedia of
Sexuality: The Philippines has always been known as the Pearl of the Orient Seas,
the Land of the Three Ss - Sun, Sand, and Sea. A fourth S, Sex, sold in coolly
wrapped packages, has emerged to the point where it has already warranted the
United Nations attention: sex tourism involving child prostitutes as young as 6
years old. [Source: Jose Florante J. Leyson, M.D., Encyclopedia of Sexuality
www2.hu-berlin.de/sexology, 2001 |~|]
Angeles City in Pampanga, north of Manila, once home of the mighty Clark U.S. Air
Base, is now being developed as an international airport. But the new airport has
also become the center of sex tours to the Philippines, openly promoted abroad,
arranged by Filipino tour operators and their foreign counterparts, with attractive
come-ons for men seeking sexual activities with virginal or child prostitutes who
they hope are free of STD and HIV infections.|~|
While the government is making major arrests in this trade, and sex
establishments are regularly closed down, the front page of major dailies show
bikini-clad young girls being led away by operatives, but never the brothel owners,
the tour operators, their cohorts, and pimps. The Philippine Congress is still
struggling to pass a law making a customer of a child prostitute criminally liable,
even if he does not engage the services of a pimp. An increase of the maximum
punishment for child labor and exploitation to twenty years was sought. The 1995
law set the punishment for child prostitution at twenty years in prison; the
punishment for pornography and pedophilia, however, remained unchanged. |~|
Sex tourism is the third-highest money-making industry in the Philippines. But the
current penalties and enforcement policies do nothing to have an impact on the

business. As in many other countries, the prostitutes are arrested, but not the
clients, managers, and others whose enormous profits make this business so
attractive. The punishment for committing prostitution is a US$500 fine or twelve
years in jail. While this law, in effect for three decades, applies to women dancing in
the nude or in scanty bikini tongs, a major element in the prostitution trade, arrests
are seldom made because of corruption and bribery. |~|
In order to reduce the negative moral and economic effects of prostitution,
government and some non-government agencies are working together to
rehabilitate former prostitutes or entertainment girls who retire or change their
profession. The governments Department of Social Welfare and Development has
programs to teach these ex-prostitutes other work alternatives and technical skills
as a means to a decent living. A civic action and rehabilitation group, Marriage
Encounter, is also training married former prostitutes to help them move back into
mainstream society and divert single women from the sex trade by improving their
personal skills for future relationships and family life. But funds and enthusiasm for
such social programs are too limited. |~|
Prostitution Near Subic Bay and Clark Air Base
In Angeles City, a town outside Clark Air Base, U.S. servicemen have been replaced
by lonely old men lured by young girls selling sex at very cheap prices. Describing
the scene in Angeles, Ages Chan wrote in the Japan Times, Girls in the go-go bar
wear tiny white tops and short skirts. They dance on the tables waiting for
customers. Once they sit down with a customer, the customers hands move all over
their bodies.
Describing the scene in the 1990s in Olangapo, a town of 120,000 people outside
Subic Bay, Edward Gargan wrote in the New York Times, "When the sunk sinks, the
jukeboxes crank, men in T-shirts and jeans straggle the bars, and scantily clad
women scan the tables for prospects. More often than not, a young man will sidle up
to a newcomer an ask, 'You want a young girl? Fifteen only.'" When the base was
open in the 1980s, there were 16,000 prostitutes working in Olangapo. Now there
are only around 500.
Reporting from Angeles City, John M. Glionna wrote in the Los Angeles Times, At a
club called Koko Yoko, balding men with bulging bellies sit at an outdoor bar, sipping
beers and leering at the young girls who pass on the model's runway gone wrong
called Fields Avenue. Many of the girls weigh barely 90 pounds, their high heels
pushing their almost adolescent bodies at perverse angles. There are cross-dressers
fooling no one, calling out to men with tattoos, Popeye forearms and gray hair on
their backs. "Lady boy!" they squeal. "Lady boy!" Some men pass by with girls onethird their age, swinging their hands together like a couple on a first date. Others
cavort with three girls at once, the women all clutching their client like daughters
competing for Daddy's attention. [Source: John M. Glionna, Los Angeles Times,
August 16, 2009 ***]
Fields Avenue, the main pedestrian drag in Angeles City, is a legacy of the time
when this row of run-down bars was the romping ground of restless young American

airmen stationed at Clark Air Base. The U.S. base closed in 1992, and the oftenrandy airmen have gone with it. But the girls, the sex, the round-the-clock
raunchiness remain. Only the customers have changed. A thriving sex tourism trade
attracts foreign customers by the thousands in search of something they cannot
find back home: girls young enough to be their granddaughters selling sex for the
price of a burger and fries. ***
A young dancer in tight red hip-hugger pants and matching sports bra
acknowledges that Fields Avenue may not be pretty, but the money is good. She
rolls her eyes at two overweight men who pass by looking like large reptiles dressed
in children's clothing. Sure, the sex is disgusting, she says. But at least it's over
quickly. Outside Koko Yoko, the doorman, a 33-year-old paraplegic, perches on a
wheeled wooden pallet. He says his father was an American who once served at
Clark, his mother a local girl. He contracted polio when he was 11 and has worked
here ever since. The street, he says, takes care of him. Soon, an idle stripper climbs
onto his back, rubbing her crotch into the back of his neck. All along Fields Avenue,
the come-on banners with their Web addresses advertise good pay (up to $10 a
day) for hostess jobs. But applicants must speak Korean, Japanese or Chinese. ***
Sex Scene in Angeles City Today
John M. Glionna wrote in the Los Angeles Times, Once populated by men in their
early 20s who started each day with 100 push-ups, the place is now home to older
men who need help pushing themselves out of bed in the morning. Most are bused
up from Manila, an hour away, on golf and sex package deals. This is no quasiinnocent boys' night out. Rather, it's a single-minded realm of weary-looking loners
on a resolute hunt that smacks of feeding an addiction. Many are ex-military men
reliving former glories, Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper wannabes, some gathering
at the local American Legion post before embarking into the night. [Source: John M.
Glionna, Los Angeles Times, August 16, 2009 ***]
There is a one-armed man, a retiree with a walker and another dapper gentleman
who strolls along in a dress shirt, twirling an umbrella, whistling a private tune.
Many head to the bars with the red-light special called "The Early-Release": Buy
your girl 10 drinks and she's yours, no questions asked. Nobody asks questions
here. Nobody gives their name. Credit cards are a joke; who wants to leave behind
any economic traces that they ever set foot here? ***
Nearby a saggy-faced Australian lights a cigarette. He's been in Angeles City for
about a month, his last stop on a sex circuit from Bangkok to Manila after getting
laid off from his electrician's job in Sydney. In Thailand, he says, the girls didn't
speak the language. Manila hookers were too streetwise, the bars too spread out.
But this is Easy Street. He can sit atop his bar stool and ogle hundreds of passing
girls fresh from the countryside who perfect the tricks of their trade before moving
on to The Show in Manila. The Australian signals a street vendor and buys some
knockoff Viagra. He says he prefers the girls working one street over, who cost only
500 pesos, or about $10, apiece. "Anything goes here," he says, lighting another
cigarette. He leans over to offer a bit of Fields Avenue inside information: "You can
get a young girl here to do anything if you promise to marry her." ***

A balding man pulls up on his motorcycle, greeting several other men loudly in
German. They already have their catch, and girls jump on the back as the cycles
roar off. At the Tourist Assistance Booth, Odysius Garche says the older customers
are better behaved than the U.S. airmen were. "I just tell them: 'The girls are inside.
Go make your own deal.' " Nearby, a chubby American with glasses eats a hot dog.
He says he's a bar manager, but offers no details. He came to Angeles City from
California, to follow up on a chat-room hookup. He ended up on Fields Avenue,
drinking late with the dancers, hearing their stories. "This is clean fun," he says.
"There's no sex shows. These girls are not slaves. They have minds of their own."
***
Behind him, women call out from the doors of bars with names like the Doll House,
Club Lancelot, Treasure Island, Club Cambodia, the Blue Nile and the Amsterdam.
Suddenly, a group of twentysomething men storms past, laughing and armpunching. The news spreads and girls pop their heads out the doorways to catch a
glimpse of boys their own age. One calls after them with a deal she hopes they
can't refuse: "Free!" she says, laughing. ***
Philippine Diplomats Involved in Prostituting Filipinas in the Middle East
In 2013, the Philippine government said it was investigating allegations that its
diplomatic personnel have trafficked Filipino women in the Middle East who were
seeking refuge there. Floyd Whaley wrote in the New York Times, Philippine
diplomatic and labor officials are alleged to have forced distressed Filipino women,
in countries like Kuwait and Jordan, into prostitution in return for safe passage back
to the Philippines. There are allegations that this has become institutionalized in
terms of the establishment of sex rings and so forth, the Philippine secretary of
foreign affairs, Albert del Rosario, said at a news conference. Investigations are
being conducted to ascertain the validity of these allegations, he said. [Source:
Floyd Whaley, New York Times, June 24, 2013 <^>]
The investigation by Mr. del Rosarios department has involved the recalling of 13
heads of diplomatic missions throughout the Middle East, Hong Kong, Singapore and
Malaysia. The ambassadors were not implicated in the allegations but were called
upon to provide information, he said. The investigation also found three victims who
alleged that they were victimized by Filipino diplomatic or labor officials, Mr. del
Rosario said. One suspect has been identified and recalled to the Philippines. <^>
A Philippine congressman, Walden Bello, opened an inquiry into the allegations of
abuse in early June after receiving information about officials extorting sex in
exchange for flights home. Our initial investigation into sex for flights revealed
something bigger, Mr. Bello said Monday by telephone. They were running a
prostitution ring out of Philippine embassies in Kuwait and Oman. The information
was shocking. Mr. Bellos investigation alleged that a Filipino diplomat in Damascus
had sex with five distressed Filipino female workers seeking shelter in the embassy,
in separate incidents. The congressman also reported that a senior Filipino labor
official in Jordan was prostituting Filipino women for $1,000 per night. The

investigation found another labor official in Kuwait who is accused of running a

similar operation using Filipino workers seeking shelter. <^>
These criminals parading as officials must be stripped of their positions, recalled
to the Philippines and prosecuted, Mr. Bello said during a June 18 press conference.
Mr. del Rosario said that a hot line had been established for other victims to come
forward and that it was producing additional information, he said. We will be able
to punish the guilty, and we also will be able to review all the policies and
procedures governing our conduct pertaining to cases such as this, he said. <^>
58 Arrested in Philippines over Global 'Sextortion'
In May 2014, fifty-eight people were arrested in the Philippines for their
involvement in a giant, global Internet "sextortion" network, local police and Interpol
said. AFP reported: Victims in foreign countries have been lured by people in the
Philippines into giving sexually explicit photos or videos about themselves online,
then blackmailed for many thousands of dollars, the authorities said. "The scale of
this extortion network is massive," the director of Interpol's Digital Crime Centre,
Sanjay Virmani said. "These crimes are not limited to any one country and nor are
the victims. That's why international cooperation in investigating these crimes is
essential." [Source: AFP, May 2, 2014]
Philippine police chief Alan Purisima said the 58 people arrested would be charged
over a range of crimes, including engaging in child pornography, extortion and
using technologies to commit fraud. It was not immediately clear whether all 58
arrested were Filipinos, although authorities initially made no mention of any
foreigners who may have been directly involved in the Philippines. However,
authorities emphasised the Philippines was not the hub of the global sextortion
network, only that the current investigation had focused on the Southeast Asian
nation.
Purisima said the scam typically involved someone posing as an attractive, young
lady making contact with people overseas via Facebook and other social media,
then seeking to establish a relationship with them. "After getting acquainted with
the victims they engage in cybersex, and this will be recorded unknown to the
victims," he said. "They then threaten to release it to friends and relatives." He said
victims had paid between 500 pesos ($11) and 500,000 pesos ($11,000). While he
said elderly men were often targeted, children were also victims. A Scottish police
chief who also briefed reporters at the press conference said one boy in Scotland
had committed suicide after being extorted. He said the boy was 17 when he killed
himself.
In the late 1990s, countries like Guyana, the Philippines, Poland, Netherlands
Antilles, Sao Tome and the Dominican Republic earned a large amounts foreign
exchange from audiotext service (sex-lines and other pay phone service) who
routed their calls through phone companies in these countries. The way the system
worked was that an American paid his bill to his American long-distance phone
company, who shared the money with the foreign phone company that received the

call. The foreign phone companies in turn shared their revenues with the audiotext
services that used the exchange for the foreign phone company.
Group of Former Prostitutes Helps Prostitutes in the Philippines
In 2011, the Philippines Inquirer reported: As the night grows older, this part of the
city becomes more alive. Women in low-cut, body-hugging clothes start appearing
on the streets of Quezon Citys red light district. Some make their move on potential
customers. Also in the area are other women dressed more conservatively in jeans
and shirt. They are not around to earn money for the night. Belonging to Bagong
Kamalayan Collective Inc. (BKCI), they have come to talk to their scantily clad
sisters about their rights and to try to inspire them to rebuild their lives.Liza
Gonzales, recounting the scene to the Philippine Daily Inquirer, knows what life is
like in the red light district. She was once one of those scantily clad women working
in that neighborhood. [Source: Rima Jessamine M. Granali, Philippine Daily Inquirer,
September 26, 2011 /*\]
Most of the BKCI staff used to gimmick in Cubao and Quezon Avenue, Gonzales
said in a recent interview. We want prostituted women to see that they can have a
stable livelihood even if they quit, Gonzales said. Today, BKCIs original five
members have grown to 50. They have found a source of income not just for
themselves but for other victims of prostitution. BKCI recently opened a cooperative
canteen. Hopefully our canteen becomes a big, big restaurant so we can help more
women, Gonzales said in Filipino. The place is barely half the size of the other
eateries along a street in Quezon City, but BKCI members talk about it with pride.
What they have now is a far cry from what they had when the Inquirer first met the
group in 2005. /*\
They had no canteen then. Engaged in food catering, all they had were a few
utensils for cooking meals which they delivered to meetings of various other
advocacy groups. To reheat the dishes, they would bring along a super kalan
(liquefied petroleum gas tank with a built-in burner). For a time, they also offered
laundry service, washing clothes with bare hands. Having no weighing scale, they
would go to a nearby market to weigh their clients laundry. They also ventured into
small businesses, such as selling homemade soap, but these didnt bring in much
money. Three years ago, their money problems worsened. We didnt even have a
centavo in the bank, Gonzales said. /*\
There were times when they had no money to buy food. When you have nothing
to feed your children, its tempting to turn to prostitution for fast money but
because of our good foundation, we remained strong. We survived without going
back, Gonzales said. Even as they struggled to live, they still conducted
educational seminars and scoured red light districts in Quezon City and elsewhere
on the chance they might help other women trapped in prostitution. Support from
allied NGOs and their strong belief that there is life after prostitution kept them
going, Gonzales said. /*\
Eventually members learned skills from livelihood training seminars. Some even
attended baking classes at Miriam College. Initially, they thought of setting up a

bakeshop. But they settled for a canteen because the girls found it difficult to make
bread, Gonzales said. With their personal savings and donations from CATW-AP and
other supporters, the group earlier this year finally managed to open their 9-squaremeter canteen. Their profit and donations help them pursue their mission, support
their families and send themselves and their children to school. /*\
Gonzales is the only founder left in the organization. Carrying thermos, packets of
instant coffee and bread, BKCI members still pound the streets of red light districts.
Over coffee, they would talk with prostitution victims about laws protecting
womens rights and other issues. Most of them are not aware of their rights. When
authorities take them to the precinct, they assume that cases are already filed
against them even without any inquest, Gonzales said. Afraid to stay behind bars,
women simply give cash and their cell phones or, worse, give cops sexual favors in
exchange for their freedom. /*\
BKCI and CATW-AP are lobbying for the passage of the antiprostitution bill, which
shifts criminal liabilities from prostituted persons to customers, pimps, brothel and
nightclub owners and law enforcement officers. The measure has been pending in
Congress for 11 years. Gonzales resents calling women in prostitution sex workers
or prostitutes. We call them prostituted women because prostitution is not a job
but a violation of human rights. Gonzales said her group did not force women to
leave their trade. They have to reach the point when they no longer want to be
there. We have healed our wounds, Gonzales said. We may not be able to
forgive those who abused us, those who raped us. But to be able to heal, to go back
to the community and freely express ourselves and fight for our rights, we feel
blessed. /*\
Prostitutes helped by the Former Prostitute Group
The Philippines Inquirer reported: Gina (not her real name), one of the survivors
that the BKCI had plucked from the streets, recalled a time when she could not even
pay the rent for her familys apartment and she had beg the landlord not to throw
them out into the streets. In those hard times, other members lived in the CATW-AP
office. One of them, Rem (also a pseudonym), was attending high school and had to
sleep in the directors office, where CATW-AP employees also worked. [Source: Rima
Jessamine M. Granali, Philippine Daily Inquirer, September 26, 2011 /*\]
Gina has five children who are all studying. Her eldest is now in college. Rem, 25,
said: Before, I could not even imagine myself going back to school. It seemed
impossible. She is now pursuing a bachelor degree in cooperatives at Polytechnic
University of the Philippines. Her sister, 20-year-old Rose (also not her real name)
and also a survivor from prostitution, is now a fourth year high school student at
Miriam College for adult education. /*\
The two sisters want to take up courses on social development so they can better
assist victims of sex trafficking. With diplomas and newly acquired skills, some
members have left BKCI to focus on their own lives. But others have remained
because we need to continue fighting for the rights of other victims of prostitution

and be their voice while they are still in the trade, Gonzales said. Said Gina: I am
most fulfilled because I am no longer on the streets. /*\

Legal prostitution won't stop HIV, says

Philippines sex worker
Issue surfaces as HIV-AIDS conference in Australia pushes for
legalization

Sex workers and clients in the Philippines' Angeles City. (Photo by Vincent Go)
Jef Tupas, Davao City, Philippines
July 25, 2014

Carla Soledad says she is not happy being a prostitute. Two years ago, the high school
graduate was invited by a neighbor to work in a restaurant. She thought it was her way
out of poverty in her village in Davao Oriental province.
She, however, ended up working in a bar where women offered sex to clients. Carla, 23,
says by the time she realized she was prostituting herself, there was no easy way out.
Leaving was too complicated.
"I was there already," Carla says. "I could have simply walked out, but I was scared that
I will never find another job. I am a high school graduate and I have a family to feed."
Her first client was a plump, mild-mannered man in his 50s. He gave her 350 pesos
(US$8) for sex.

"It was my first time to do it for money, and I was scared and confused. At the same
time, something in me was telling me to do it anyway. I was already there and I badly
needed money," she says. "I didn't like it. I hated it."
At the convention of HIV-AIDS experts in Melbourne this week, women like Carla were
placed in the spotlight after some sectors pushed for the legalization of prostitution as a
prescription to stop the spread of HIV.
"How can it be the remedy?" says Carla.
Michel Sidibe, executive director of UNAIDS, told the Melbourne conference that
governments must decriminalize prostitution to allow sex workers to insist on the use of
condoms.
Studies presented at the conference showed the correlation between the criminalization
of prostitution and the continued spread of HIV infection.
Carla says her first client insisted on using a condom, but there were those who also
insisted on not using it, with some men offering more money.
Carla believes that using a condom will protect her from sexual infections.
"Condoms are supposed to protect us, we know that already. But I don't know about
legalizing prostitution as a way to protect us because we are not supposed to be here in
the first place," she says.
If prostitution is legalized, will the government give sex workers the benefits and
services being enjoyed by those who are employed in other industries?
"Will it give us more than the guarantee that our clients will use condoms?" Carla asks.
"Whether legal or not, prostitution is immoral and it demoralizes women. No one likes it
here. I do not like it," she says.
Jeanette Ampog, executive director of women's advocacy group Talikala, says the study
that shows that women can demand condom use from their client once prostitution is
legalized "lacks understanding and analysis of the profile of women in prostitution".
"It takes more than legalization to develop and enhance the self-confidence and power
of the women in the sex industry," Ampog says.
She says curbing the rise of HIV infection and AIDS is an urgent task but "we should not
forget that prostitution is an issue beyond HIV infection".
Carla, meanwhile, says she regrets not walking out the day when she had her first
client.

"I am not sure how the world looks at us, but the recommendation [to legalize
prostitution] is a blow to the women who have been forced into this trade," she says.
"Legal or illegal, women in prostitution will always be disadvantaged in an industry that
is by nature abusive of women," Carla says.
Carla says the thought of the government legalizing prostitution to force people to use
condom "is a flimsy excuse of how governments fail to curb HIV".
Representative Luz Ilagan of the women's party Gabriela says prostitution is not the
cause of HIV and AIDS.
"Legalizing prostitution is not the solution to decreasing the infection," she says. "By
legalizing prostitution, governments will only legalize exploitation of women,
exploitation of children, sexual abuse, sex trafficking, pimping, and all other businesses
associated with prostitution.
"It is an issue of being poor, being a woman or child with no access to basic services. It
is an issue of treating women and children as commodities," she says.
"Are we sending the message to the future generation that selling your body for sex is
one viable job?" Ilagan says.
For Carla, the answer for future generations lies with viable work opportunities.
"Ultimately, what we need is to get out and get away from this condition. Legalizing
prostitution is not the answer," she says.

InterAksyon.com
The online news portal of TV5
A recently released United Nations report, "Sex Work and the Law in Asia and the Pacific" raised the
recommendation to legalize prostitution in the Philippines. The report claims that "the legal
recognition of sex work as an occupation enables workers to claim benefits, to form or join unions
and to access work related banking, insurance, transport and pension schemes."
The report also comes amid reports of increasing cases of HIV-AIDS in the Philippines, with claims
that regulated and legalized prostitution will help control the spread of sexually transmitted diseases
and infections.
Gabriela Womens Party does not agree with this proposal.
Prostitution is a human rights violation. It is among the recognized forms of violence committed
against women and children. It is not work or occupation that women undertake by choice. Viewed in
the Philippine setting, it is a situation, most often characterized by physical abuse, exploitation and
discrimination which women and children endure when they are forced by circumstances to be
prostituted.
Article 201 of the Revised Penal Code of the Philippines prohibits prostitution. It is this provision that
has been repeatedly used to arrest women, children as well as men forced by poverty into the flesh
trade. The law treats them as criminals rather than victims, conducting humiliating arrests while often
failing to apprehend and prosecute pimps, club and sex den operators, recruiters and sex traffickers.
The Philippine socio-economic setting breeds prostitution. The dearth of employment opportunities,
widespread landlessness and worsening poverty leave mothers, women and children - seen in the
feudal patriarchal outlook as the weaker, lesser sex ascribed with the role to serve and entertain extremely vulnerable to the flesh trade. Poor women have limited access to basic social services
such as health, education and housing and conditions of economic want can push them to succumb
to the lure of prostitution.
Through the years, prostitution and sex trafficking in the Philippines have flourished without decline.
Billions of pesos are circulated annually among highly organized syndicates and operators, some of
whom enjoy a certain level of tolerance and protection from local police and government officials.
It is in this social context that Gabriela Women's Party views and consequently rejects
recommendations to legalize prostitution in the Philippines.

The legalization of prostitution is tantamount to the legalization of exploitation and of the violence
that commonly exist within the system. Legalization creates a situation where prostituted women and
children are legally subjected to slave-like conditions. The notion that patrons or clients are legally
buying sexual services does not in anyway dignify or uplift how society looks at women and
children.
In countries where prostitution has been legalized, reports say that the stigma and discrimination
remain, despite the change in the sex workers' status. In fact, this low regard for women and children
forced into the flesh trade makes them more vulnerable to abuse, making clients do as they please
with their purchase. A study in 2002 conducted among victims of trafficking in five European
countries where prostitution has been legalized reveal that 80-percent of respondents had suffered
violence and abuse from pimps or buyers.
Contrary to what the UN report claims, the legalization of prostitution will not in any way ensure the
protection of women, children and men forced to engage in the flesh trade.
Legalization will not guarantee protection against sexually transmitted infection and HIV. While
legalization will subject women and children to mandatory periodical testing for HIV and other
sexually transmitted infections, clients who make the purchase are not tested and health clearances
are issued not to protect women but to protect clients of prostitution. The objective of protecting
prostituted women and children from HIV and other STIs is best achieved by increasing women's
awareness and education and ensuring womens access to health services. It must be noted,
though, that in the Philippines, the Department of Health has documented the rapid increase of
HIV/AIDS incidence not among prostituted women but among MSM or men having sex with men.
Legalization means allowing the commodification of women and children to flourish, with pimps,
brothel owners and operators as well as sex traffickers as legit, licensed entrepreneurs. Legalization
will make the sex trade a legitimate source of profit primarily for sex traffickers, brothel owners and
pimps with women and children at the exploited end.
Legalization creates a climate where exploitation becomes permissible thus any objective to regulate
or control the flesh trade is defeated by the fact that the purchase of sexual services becomes a
socially acceptable and legally recognized practice.
The UN report's claims that legalization of prostitution will allow prostituted women and children to
have workers' benefits is impracticable in a country where workers' rights to living wages, benefits
and organization are threatened and practically unrecognized.
Prostitution is a highly organized exploitative system, bred and perpetuated by poverty, social
injustice and inequalities. Legalizing prostitution is a huge step backward into an era when slavery
was acceptable. Legalization will not render women and children less susceptible to the degrading
and violent conditions that are inherent in prostitution. Legalization will not eliminate the conditions of
poverty and want that are the roots of womens oppression and exploitation.
Gabriela Women's Party proposes instead to enact legislation that will remedy the situation where
women engaged in prostitution are penalized. By introducing amendments to the Revised Penal

Code, Gabriela Women's Party seeks to address the problem by decriminalizing the prostituted
women and children and instead penalizing the pimps, operators and customers.
The legalization of prostitution does not mean progress. It is the elimination of the dire economic
conditions that allow prostitution to flourish that is the step forward to women's emancipation.