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Expat2Phils.com » pagpipinta sa pulo » Jun. 30, 2008

pagpipinta sa pulo: Precious Women

Jun. 30, 2008 Newsletter by Tara C. Alverson

‘Precious Women’ is one of the newest programs added
to the International Care Ministries in Dumaguete City, Negros
Oriental . It’s designed to reach out to those women in the surrounding
community who have been subjected into prostitution.
ICM has been running this program in other areas around the
Philippines since it’s induction over 15 years ago. Once a week
they hold a bible study and give out 4 kg of rice to each recipient
of Precious Women.
Sol, the staff member in charge of the Precious Women’s
program goes out and visits with each woman regularly. 27
women in prostitution have joined the outreach program. After
one year the women will be assessed and if they choose they
can apply for the micro-loan program through the ICM. It’s
designed to help the women who want out of prostitution find an
alternative livelihood. The ICM will fund any necessary training
and education for them to succeed. Every year the ministry
goes out and finds a new group of 25 women in each area for the
outreach. ‘It’s a blessing to have 27 women, but the ICM unfortunately
only has funding for 25 in each area.’ Sol informed me
of the problem that she was facing with the new ministry she
had helped start. She asked me, ‘How do I turn the two women
away?’
Each week 4 kg of rice is distributed to each precious
women’s recipient. 4 kg of rice cost roughly 158 pesos ($3.75
US). This is meant to last the recipient and their small family
for a week of meals. One month for one recipient cost 632
pesos ($15.00 US). One year, 7,584 pesos ($180.00 US). The
supplement feeding helps the woman and their families with a
small part of the cost of living. It’s a simple way to encourage
and allow them to look elsewhere for a source of livelihood. If
you would like to donate to this cause you can either go to the
ICM website and make your donation specific to the Dumaguete
ICM, Precious Women’s Program, at www.caremin.com, or you
can contact me via email and I can provide you the information
necessary.
My family has donated toys and children’s clothing
which has been distributed at the precious women’s program.
Any type of support means so much. One of the women is not
yet 30 and just gave birth to her 8th child a few days ago. She
informed Sol that she started prostitution when she was 14
years old. It seems so young but most women are introduced
into prostitution at a very young age. The woman’s oldest
daughter who is 13 has also begun prostituting herself. Nearly
all the women subjected to prostitution come from very poor
families, broken homes, and for one reason or another they
were not able to attend public school. The government requires
that all children be able to read and write before they are accepted
into public schools, but if the family is poor and uneducated
they may not have the time nor the resources to help their
children. Some of the young women already have sick parents
to take care of and younger siblings that are in their debt. Going
into prostitution is often a choice that a young woman makes
not for her own benefit, but for her family, and for her children’s
welfare. Sol tells me that most of the women she talked
to were neglected and sexually abused by family members
when they were very young.
Sex tourism is a huge part of the economy in the Philippines.
You don’t have to walk down the streets very far to see
it. I was in Manila a few weeks ago and I talked to a man in the
hotel lobby where I was staying. He was from Arkansas, maybe
35. (We’ll call him John) John told me he was waiting for a
girl, who was a prostitute. He alike many of the foriegners that
come to the Philippines for the sex tourism travel to the different
islands. ‘I guess I’m kind of wandering around, trying to
find why I’m alive.’ He actually sad that, and I asked him why
he came to Manila to find out why he was alive, he laughed.
‘Some of the guys I travel with are really abusive to the girls,
...they yell at them, push them around.’ Most the women in
prostitution are treated as if they have no human rights, slapped
around, beaten, raped and forced into other extreme acts of violence.
It’s sick, but that’s how it works in the bigger cities like
Manila. The economy here is dependant on sex tourism. It’s
illegal, make no mistake. But the government turns a blind eye,
just as long as they and their officials get paid off, all is favorable.
It’s monstrous how corrupt the Philippines Government is,
especially when it comes to the rights of it’s own people.
I helped the ICM survey the women in prostitution from
around Dumaguete City. The first question was, ‘What is your
occupation?’ I got flustered, thinking can I ask one of the girls
that? But all the ladies answered, ‘waitress’, which confused me.
I later found out from Sol that most the women work as waitresses
in the bars around town that support the act of prostitution.
The bar manager is the one who sets up the ‘date’ and is paid a
flat some, usually about 500 pesos ($10 US). The woman who
is referred to as the prostitute gets only 20% of that, being 100
pesos (A little over 2 bucks). Talk about a crime! If a woman has
three children to feed at home she would need to have at least
two or three customers a night to be able to feed and support her
family for one day. I can’t imagine the physical and emotional
warfare it must conflict on a persons psyche.
Poverty and lack of education is a real problem to the
physical and mental health of people living in poor communities.
Here, poverty is the real reason why women go into prostitution,
whether lead by their family or themselves to make money.
It must be hard to subject yourself to that kind of degradation
everyday. That kind of humiliation seems to have taken a tole on
the women. You can see it especially on the faces of the older
generations who lived an entire life of prostitution. One woman I
talked to in the Cebu Center had been beaten and raped repeatedly
by her ‘customers’, forcing her to do things no woman should
ever have to suffer. And most the women have mixed feelings
about foreigner’s that come for the sex tourism. Sure they have
more money but often times they are the ones that are most abusive.
In my Lonely Plant, Philippines guide book the authors
talks about the sex tourism, putting the number of sex workers
in the Philippines up to 400,000 in 2006, and over 20% of that
number being children. Pedophilia sex tourism is a reality here in
the Philippines. It happens. ‘There’s big money to be made in pedophilia,
...Despite strict laws, the number of foreigners charged
and convicted for child sex crimes in the Philippines is so low as
to be an encouragement to foreign pedophiles.’ - Lonely Planet,
Philippines. I’ve seen some of the older men staring at the young
girls, I’ve been right their when they go up and start talking to
them. I hate the idea that I can’t do anything, but there’s a hot
line called, End Child Prostitution in Asia Tourism, www.ecpat.
net. I’ve visited it a few times.
It’s horrible to think of children being the crime of such
a hennas act. And no one says a thing against it. A sense of false
pride, or a sense of what is called ‘Hiya ‘ in the Philippines prevents
the people from speaking out. I think also they are afraid.
Not many Filipino’s have a reason to trust their government to
uphold justice, and those that have spoken out against such corruption
have been made martyrs.
Sex tourism is destructive at every level. From the
women subjected into prostitution to their children, all the way
up to the government. I don’t see the global problem of sex
tourism going away anytime soon. Not with pedophiles and sex
addicts fleeing to other 3rd world countries to find cheap ways
of pleasuring themselves. Honestly, it pisses me off! Where are
detectives, Benson and Stabler when you need them most?
Despite the madness, the ICM continues to reach out on
a local level to each recipient. I think it’s the practical manner
of how they go about it that really makes a difference. Maybe
only 5 or 7 of the 25 women in the program decide to find
alternate livelihoods. But what a positive impact that has on
those women and their families. This program means something
to the community. The 27 women in the Precious Women’s
Program here in Dumaguete tell me that just by coming
once a week on Fridays, at 3:30pm for the bible study, encouragement,
and rice. I think Sol is doing a great job reaching out
to the women in the community.
- - - - - - - - - -
We are going to take the orphan’s dolphin watching
in the coming week, depending on weather. They are very
excited. Lot Lot, the young girl with cerebral palsy says she’s
excited, but tells me, ‘I like snakes more then dolphins.’
I plan to travel to Manila in the next week or so to pick
up my camera in the repair shop. I might go further north to
Zambales (Near Mt. Pinatubo), where ICM has relations with a
family that makes regular medical visits up the mountain to the
remote tribal areas. It should be a good trip.
I have bad news about little Blazela who lived on Paradise
Island, Under The Bridge, of Cebu. She passed away last
Monday, the 23rd of June. The complications from the hole in
her heart were too much. She was 1 year old. The money you
donated for her medicine kept her in the hospital more then 40
days. I haven’t seen her family since. I’m sure they are struggling
to cope with the loss. It’s tragic. I hope I can remember
her as long as I can, she really made a difference in my life.
You may have heard about the typhoon that passed
over the Philippines last week, killing over 300 people, not
including the 800 plus, still, ‘missing’ from the ship ‘Princess
of the stars.’ It shouldn’t had left it’s port in Cebu, as half way
through it’s journey to Manila it was capsized by the pounding
waves of the storm. Unreported pesticides and chemicals carried
in the cargo hold held back the rescue efforts. I wouldn’t
be surprised if the government had something to do with it.
The ferry boats here are really old and not always the most seaworthy.
The typhoon left it’s wake. Their is still some flooding
in some of the northwestern places in the Philippines, like
Bacolod and Iliolo. Dumaguete was not hard hit at all.
Earlier this month I helped design shirts, trophies and
paint the backdrop for the ICM’s Grand Touch Point. It’s a performance
and worship contest between the recipient churches
for the entire Negros Oriental Province. The theme this year
was ‘Lord of Blessings.’ It was fun. I hope you enjoy some
pictures I have taken in the past months on Cebu, Bohol and
Negros Oriental. I hope to have new ones for you when I get
my camera back.
I have three months to go. I’m still painting and planning
on drinking a huge glass of whole milk when I get home
and then taking a really long shower. Thanks again for the support.
Pagpipinta Sa Pulo : Precious Women
Tara C. Alverson / T.C. Artworks
June 30, 2008
Photos on page 3
Photos on page 4
Photos on page 5
Photos on page 6

pagpipinta sa pulo Newsletter is copyright Tara C. Alverson. Reprinted with permission.


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