THESE young girls are too ashamed to tell their parents of what happened to them. In the sex bar or brothel, the girls become members of another kind of “family.” The manager is the “mama san.” The owner is known as “Big Daddy.” He expects to be always obeyed without question, to be sexually gratified. The other sex workers are called sisters. The girls get loans with high interest rates that they can never pay off. The debt bondage almost lasts a lifetime.
This sex bar or brothel culture is a corruption of the traditional Filipino family structure that creates dependency and loyalty to the “family.”
Trafficked children have been convinced, even brainwashed, by their abusers that sex work is the only work for them. When these children are just aged 13 to 16, sexually abused in their own family and/or trafficked, they lose all clear decision-making capabilities. They already dropped out of school, and many are illiterate. They have been abused and traumatized, and blamed for their situation. However, they cannot be held responsible for the crimes committed against them.
These girls are in constant danger of contracting sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), including AIDS. They have no medical benefits.
Under local ordinances and national law, bar owners are required to bring their sex workers for regular checkups at government-run clinics to test for STDs. Bar or brothel owners will face penalties if they fail to do this.
This medical requirement and the issuance of operating permits for sex bars make it clear that the government allows and is involved in prostitution and, by extension, human trafficking.
When they are rescued and referred by government social workers to the Preda Foundation, the trafficked children tell us how some police sexually abused them when they were in police custody. Others recount that they were sexually abused by undercover nongovernment organization (NGO) “rescuers.” The NGOs involved in this criminal activity deny this allegation.
Children referred to the Preda therapeutic center feel protected from their abusers and are content to stay there. The Preda home is an open home, not a jail, and while they are legally placed in the care of the foundation, they are not confined; they can leave any time.
Most are convinced to stay and turn around their lives through Preda’s emotional release therapy and the values taught to them about their dignity and human rights. They go to school while at Preda.
After testifying against their abusers and human traffickers, they are reintegrated with their supportive relatives and enter into the aftercare program that gives financial assistance for them to continue schooling.
Many have gone on to college. Healed and empowered, and their abusers or traffickers serving life sentences, these girls are now free to live a new, happier life./PN
