sex tourism in the philippines essay

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In Philippine red-light district, an uphill struggle to battle trafficking and abuses

ANGELES CITY, Philippines — The girls onstage were numbered, not named.

Silently, they shuffled in a circle around the mirrored platform in a basement dance bar; arms folded around bare stomachs, eyes fixed on the scuffed metal floor.

At the back of the stage, a 14-year-old in black heels hunched her shoulders and tried to shrink into the shadows. It has been more than a year since she was trafficked into the dimly lit nightclub about 50 miles north of Manila.

She is among hundreds of girls supplied each year in Angeles City to meet the demands of foreign men paying for sex — many of whom are American.

A bell sounded and a tourist entered the bar. Under the gaze of her manager, the girl stepped forward and forced a smile. Her knees shook in the spotlight.

The Philippine city of Angeles — home to a former U.S. military base — has long been a hub for “sex tourism”: illegal prostitution between foreign men and Filipina girls often still in their teens and trafficked into the industry, or young women pushed into the sex trade by family pressure and economic desperation.

The Philippines sex industry and potential for continued exploitation, however, remains indirectly aided by legislative loopholes and apparent indifference from authorities, according to activists.

Prostitution is illegal in the Philippines and commercial sex with a child under the age of 18 is rape. But bar managers can circumnavigate laws. Girls and women are presented as “entertainers” rather than sex workers, and payments for sex are packaged as “fines” paid to the bars by a patron on behalf of a woman leaving her shift early.

Meanwhile, the government of President Rodrigo Duterte has devoted few resources to battling the Philippines’ illicit sex industry even as it wages brutal crackdowns on the drug trade.

Duterte, in fact, has appeared to invite foreign men to the country with the suggestion that young women are waiting.

“They’re all on the beach sunbathing,” Duterte said during his State of the Nation address in July. Last year, he joked that he would attract visitors to the country with the promise of “42 virgins.”

Local leaders are left to mostly handle the repercussions alone.

“I will not give up on this,” said Angeles’ newly elected mayor, Carmelo “Pogi” Lazatin Jr., in July, adding that ending all forms of prostitution in the city was top-priority. “But it will take time. There is a lot of resistance.”

Activists' warnings

As the sex industry has become more lucrative, corrupt officials have taken steps to give it a veneer of lawfulness, activists say.

More than 9,000 bar girls are registered as “entertainers,” but the government mandates they take sexually transmitted disease tests on a weekly basis — a move criticized by activists as a marketing trick to present the city’s sex industry as clean and tourist-friendly.

Meanwhile, bar owners often pretend to obey minimum-age requirements of 18.

Unregistered, freelance sex workers and trafficking victims abound. The youngest girl interviewed by The Fuller Project was 10 years old.

Next year, a new airport terminal on the outskirts of Angeles is set to triple the number of visitors to the region and bring a possible expansion of sex trafficking and abuses, human rights advocates warn.

“If tourism doubles, then the vulnerability of children doubles, too,” said Dolores Alforte, Philippines executive director for the international nonprofit End Child Prostitution And Trafficking, known as ECPAT.

In July 2018, the then-mayor of Angeles, Edgardo Pamintuan, and Angeles-based nonprofit founder Robert Wagner met with John McGregor, then the human rights officer of the U.S. Embassy in Manila.

They proposed a six-point plan for American assistance in holding U.S. citizens accountable for possible crimes related to exploiting Filipina women and girls, including the placement of closed-circuit TV cameras outside the bars and a kiosk where sex workers and trafficking victims could report abuse and ask for help.

Neither Pamintuan nor Wagner have seen any action taken since.

The U.S. Embassy in Manila declined to make a public comment. But past statements by U.S. officials have emphasized a strong partnership with Philippine law enforcement on human trafficking and related issues.

In June, the State Departement’s Trafficking in Persons Report listed the Philippines among the top-tier countries with laws in place to battle human trafficking.

“Although the [Philippine] government meets the minimum standards, it did not vigorously investigate and prosecute officials allegedly involved in trafficking crimes,” the report added.

Back in the darkened bar, an American man beckoned the 14-year-old down from the stage. She told him that her name was Rose and that she had just turned 18: two lies, taken from the fake papers used to secure her job in the bar. A manager informed the tourist that it will cost 2,000 Philippine pesos, or $38, to take Rose back to his hotel for a “short time.” Two crumpled blue notes are passed between palms.

“They remind me of my grandpa,” Rose said later.

The Washington Post does not identify minors in sex cases or victims of sex crimes.

Of the 30 girls in the bar that evening, Rose thought she was the youngest, but she wasn’t sure.

'No jurisdiction'

More than 150 women and girls interviewed by The Fuller Project in Angeles City said they wanted to leave prostitution but didn’t know how.

Those younger than 18 were scared that “rescue” would involve leaving their friends or families. Many were afraid that under current anti-prostitution laws, reporting foreign predators to the local police could land the girls in jail.

“It’s just normal,” said Angel, 14, who said she was trafficked into the city’s sex industry when she was 12 years old by an American man. She now works “freelance” with a group of nine friends. All are underage, she said.

“It happens to all of us,” she added.

Under the 2003 PROTECT Act , U.S. citizens suspected of committing child sexual exploitation abroad can be charged in the United States, regardless of where their offense takes place.

But despite a team of U.S. law enforcement agents in Manila specifically tasked with investigating Americans who sexually abuse children across the Philippines, there have been few convictions.

“We’ve identified American citizens going to places like the Philippines with the purpose of having sex with kids who are poor,” said Stacie Harris, an associate deputy attorney general and national coordinator for Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking at the Justice Department.

But the PROTECT Act has no reach over U.S. citizens seeking out adult sex workers while abroad.

“You have a U.S. tourist who goes over and picks up someone on a street corner,” said Harris, “and we have no jurisdiction over that.”

This article was reported by The Fuller Project for International Reporting, a nonprofit newsroom investigating issues that most impact women.

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SEA Games: Foreign Tourist Surge to Philippines Sees Rising Risk of Sex Trafficking

This article was originally published in The South China Morning Post .

Sixteen-year-old Julianne* was trafficked into the Philippine sex industry two years ago. She makes between US$40 and US$80 a week, which goes straight to her family of six.

As dusk falls and men flock to the bar where she works, she chews her nails nervously. The past week has been scarier than usual.

There has been a surge in foreign tourists to Angeles City, one of the 23 locations where the Southeast Asian Games (SEA Games) are taking place this year. A total of 8,750 athletes from 11 countries are competing in 531 events over the course of 12 days.

Julianne’s bar manager has threatened to dock waitresses’ pay unless they accompany men back to their hotels.

Officials say thousands of women and children have faced or could be facing increased sexual abuse, with government agencies failing to protect them ahead of the games

Both Angeles City and Subic Bay, located a few hours’ drive north of Manila, are internationally known as sex tourism destinations, and targeted by men from around the world.

Prostitution is illegal in the Philippines, and girls are not supposed to work in bars if they are under 18, but rules are easily broken, and birth certificates regularly exchanged.

Yvette Coronel, Secretariat for the Inter-Agency Coalition Against Trafficking [IACAT], a division of the Philippine Department of Justice, said the issue of sex trafficking was not considered ahead of the games.

“We probably should have, because Angeles and Subic are known hotspots for trafficking,” Coronel said.

“It’s not the athletes from other countries who are the risk,” she said. “It’s everyone who they bring with them: their team members and their coaches and the people who come to watch them. Girls in both those cities are very vulnerable.”

Father Shay Cullen, founder of the PREDA Foundation, a non-profit working to rescue children from foreign exploitation in Subic Bay and Angeles City, said he was not surprised by the government’s inaction.

“With hundreds of children being sexually abused daily by hundreds of sex bars; ignored by and approved by the government, do you think it is likely they would have much concern?” Cullen asked. He added there are currently 67 children living at the PREDA shelter.

Women and children from China and Vietnam are also being trafficked to provide sexual services during the games, with police rescuing more than 20 from multiple sites in Angeles City in the last 10 days.

But Rhea Mutuc, head of the Department of Tourism in Angeles City, said she was not aware of a rise in sexual exploitation during the SEA Games so far.

“It’s a sports event, so there is not much risk to the girls. But of course security is an issue we take very seriously,” she said. There is an increased police presence and medics have been placed on standby at all associated sporting venues.

The night before the SEA Games opening ceremony on November 30, the Angeles City Information Office said local authorities including the police had rounded up 44 freelance sex workers and massage therapists who could not provide an official ID. There was no mention of detaining any of the foreign men who crowd the red light district, or lead underage girls back to the numerous ‘short time’ hotels around the city.

Reema, 26, who works as a waitress in a Korean-owned bar along the city’s main entertainment strip, watched as a brass band made up of 15 uniformed policemen led a parade of dancers through the red light district to the tune of O’ Come, All Ye Faithful on December 6. “It’s all for showing off,” she said, annoyed. “They say there is more security, but this is it.”

She said the threat of arrest would deter most sex workers and trafficking victims from asking for help from the police in the first place.

Besides the Philippine government, activists and human rights advocates have remained quiet, in comparison to the many groups that adopted aggressive anti-trafficking stances ahead of international sporting events such as the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang and the 2017 Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games in Turkmenistan.

In 2018, regional child protection organisation Child Rights Coalition Asia publicly called upon the organisers of the Asian Games in Jakarta, Indonesia, to implement an extensive child-protection strategy ahead of the event – advising on emergency hotline numbers and information for tourists on Indonesian child exploitation laws. CRC Asia’s Manila office said no such statement was issued ahead of the SEA Games, but declined to provide a reason why.

Similarly, Unicef, which has previously partnered with international law enforcement to raise awareness around trafficking ahead of events such as the 2010 Football World Cup in South Africa, said it had not developed any campaigns or recommendations around child safety during this year’s SEA Games, and was unaware of any activities by partner organisations.

Reema wishes the welfare of women and children in Angeles City was taken more seriously. “It’s very bad, because the tourists see any girl, and they think ‘oh she’s Filipina, now I can buy her for sex’.

“It doesn’t matter what you’re wearing or if you’re holding your child or how old you are – the men still think they can grab you and touch you, because this is the Philippines and nobody tells them it’s not OK.”

For Julianne, the increased threat during the SEA Games is predictable. “I don’t expect people to help me,” she said, twisting a length of brown hair into a knot on top of her head. “I think being a girl here is always very hard.”

Names have been changed to protect the identity of interviewees.

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