From One System of Control to Another for Philippine Child Survivors of Sex Trafficking and Prostitution

by Katie Palmer
–Philippines–

Nicki* was eight when her mother sold her to a local pimp in Southern Luzon, Philippines. She was forced to have sex daily with different pedophiles in a seedy brothel. Every night she danced on a stage where men would call her down, take her to a room, and sexually abuse her. This went on for a number of years until the Philippine Government’s Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) rescued her. Nicki stayed in the DSWD’s shelter for girl survivors of sexual exploitation for about two years.

The parallels between Nicki’s experiences in the brothel and in the government rehabilitation center are astonishing. Nicki describes her experience at DSWD, “We were locked up like monkeys. Visitors would come and point at us. I asked, ‘Are we in the Manila zoo?’”

Unfortunately, Nicki is not alone in her experiences. All too often, girl survivors of commercial sexual exploitation are taken from one system of control—the red-light district—and placed into another system of control—the rehabilitation center. The only difference is that while the former controls the girls for profit, the latter controls the girls out of a sort of paternalistic-type protectionist duty.

Each year, around 100,000 Filipino children are trafficked for the purposes of sexual exploitation both within the Philippines and to nearby destination countries, including Japan, Singapore, and Thailand.

From my experience as a volunteer I have seen that a more successful rehabilitation approach treats the girl survivors as participants in their own recovery. One NGO that actually understands and meets the needs of girl survivors of forced prostitution is End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography, and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes-Philippines (ECPAT Ph). Since 2007, ECPAT Ph has been providing shelter and rehabilitation services to anywhere from ten to thirty girl survivors of forced prostitution. Currently, ECPAT Ph provides shelter to ten girls, whose ages range between ten and eighteen.

“Our guiding philosophy [at ECPAT Ph] is that we believe children experience a lot of trauma and are controlled by their abusers. Children should not be controlled in the same sense as the abusers did. In protecting children, they should be involved [in the process] in the sense that they are given responsibility and information on how to protect themselves. This belief is at the heart of our code of conduct,” explains Trinidad R. Maneja, the lead social worker at ECPAT Ph.

ECPAT Ph is one of the few children’s rights NGOs in the Philippines that have an onsite shelter specifically for girl survivors of trafficking and prostitution. “Most shelters in the Philippines only provide services to girls who have been physically abused. A lot do not want to reach out to survivors of trafficking. These girls are very traumatized, have loads of behavioral issues, and are just plain naughty,” explains Maneja. “There was an unmet need and we knew we had to fill it.”

Naughty is an understatement. I recently started volunteering at ECPAT Ph on weekends and during some weeknights after my official work hours at the Center for Migrant Advocacy. On one of my first visits I brought English children’s books for the girls. They were over the moon. They looked at the pictures together and some went off by themselves to read. A while later, three of the younger girls and I started playing “stella ella olla,” a group clapping game. Julie*, an eighteen year old, walked past us when she mistook our innocent giggles for jeering laughs at her dirty feet. In a fit of unexpected rage, she threw one of the new books across the room and cursed up a storm. She proceeded to enter the television room where she blasted the CD player and listened to music for the next forty-five minutes. These types of irrational tantrums are common among girl survivors of sexual exploitation. The ECPAT Ph staff is incredible in terms of the patience and support they give to the girls.

The ECPAT Ph shelter is built on the founding principles of trust and respect. These two principles are what make the shelter functional and different from brothels and many other child-focused rehabilitation centers. Furthermore, trust and respect are the driving forces behind ECPAT Ph’s open shelter policy. Unlike the many centers I have visited across Southeast Asia in the past three years, there is no guard on duty nor do jail-like bars trap the girls inside.

ECPAT Ph also believes that by not locking the girls up 24/7, they are less likely to run away and return to the red-light districts. Building trust is key to the success of the shelter. Ms. Maneja explains, “During the child’s first week [at ECPAT Ph], she is most likely to run away. She cannot always understand why she was placed here. She doesn’t know that it’s a safe place.”

Ms. Maneja tells me the story of fifteen year old Joey* who was placed at ECPAT Ph. “She hated it. She ran away right away. I found her and started talking to her. I told her that she doesn’t have to like it here. I asked her to stay for just a couple of days and then she could make her own decision whether or not to stay. Well two days turned into six months.”

The girls at ECPAT Ph are also given a bit of flexibility in terms of their school schedules, extracurricular activities, and dating lives. Girls who have been prostituted most likely did not have structure during their days of exploitation. At ECPAT Ph, the girls are given a balance between having structure and also having the freedom to be in control of their lives. The staff recognizes if they impose too many rules and regulations on the girls, the youth will rebel and chaos will ensue.

Six of the current ten girls attend regular classes in nearby public schools; the other four are home-schooled because of behavioural issues. The staff keeps files on the girls’ schedules, and they are expected to return to ECPAT Ph immediately after school. If the girls wish to participate in extracurricular activities, they are allowed as long as they inform the staff of the new schedules. They are even allowed to bring classmates over to ECPAT Ph. By allowing the shelter to be such a welcoming space, the shelter is less like an institution and more like a home.

What makes ECPAT Ph exemplary—from my perspective—is that the girls can choose to date. Unlike at some other shelters where the girls are encouraged not to have boyfriends, ECPAT Ph recognizes that teenagers have feelings and hormones. Because the staff understands that dating is part of the growing up process, they teach the girls about healthy sexuality, including personal safety. If need be, ECPAT Ph will also provide condoms to the youth. The result is that the girls feel supported and accepted. They do not try to hide their love lives from the staff. Rather, they bring their boyfriends to the shelter.

The opposite is true at some NGOs where many girls are forced to hide their romantic relationships from staff out of fear of disapproval and a potential scolding. At another NGO where I volunteered for a month in 2008, the girls had access to two leisure books: the Bible and a Catholic devotional book where there was a chapter on why premarital sex is wrong. (I have since visited this NGO and was glad to note their library has expanded—albeit marginally.) This is terrible on so many levels, particularly because these girls have been repeatedly raped. They do not need to experience guilt because of what others have done to their bodies.

Preda is an NGO that has been providing residential and rehabilitation services for over twelve years to girl survivors who have been rescued from sex bars, pimps, and cyber dens. Currently, the center has twenty girls and their ages range from fourteen to seventeen. With the exception of when the girls are at school, they are locked up 24/7. While the Executive Director insists, “we are locking out the abductors and kidnappers [and not locking the girls in],” the outcome is the same: the girls learn there are two types of men—the bad guys who abuse them and the good guys who ‘save’ them. Both use systems of control to discipline the girls on how to behave.

Preda’s systems of control are thinly veiled under the guise of protectionism. Through weekly sermons, wall murals, jail-like bars, and everyday interactions between the staff and the girls, the latter are constantly reminded they are dependent victims who would be “throwaways” if it were not for the intervention of Preda. Yet, from my three years of direct contact with girl survivors, I have learned they do not function best when they are controlled. They run away. This is exactly what happens time and time again at some NGOs.

More research is required—in terms of the number of youth who run away and why, how many youth reenter prostitution upon leaving the shelter, and how many become self-sufficient members of society—before a ‘best practices’ list can be determined. But from what I have witnessed over the past few years, the marginally successful and happier girls come from shelters that not only promote children’s rights at the macro level but also incorporate them into every aspect of the programs, policies, and interactions of the NGO.

*name has been changed to protect real identity

About the Author:
Katie Palmer was born and raised in Toronto, Canada. She recently earned a graduate degree in Geography from the University of Toronto. She earned her bachelor’s degree in geography and gender studies also from the University of Toronto. In the past few years, Katie has traveled to Southeast Asia multiple times to research the effects of and responses to the flesh trade in women and children. Aside from the WIP, she has written for Gender Across Borders, Herizons, and the University of Toronto Magazine on topics relating to gender, migration, development, and women and children in prostitution.