Poverty, Prostitution, Money, Life and its Limits

When I was 14 years old, a girl(let us name her Anne) messaged me on yahoo messenger if I wanted to earn money. Young as I am, with little knowing, I said yes. She told me that a guy(or should I say, "boss") from the US was giving her laptops, cameras, and $5000 per month. Of course, I was shocked and was excited on what I will do because I could get all these new gadgets. Then a guy messaged me and said "hi", he was the "boss" of the girl. He gave me the partial code in Western Union so that I could get the things that I wanted. Since the code isn't complete, he asked me if i have a webcam, at that point in time, I didn't have one. And so he asked if i had pictures of myself, I did, i sent him pictures of myself. Then he asked if i had a picture of myself naked, with the word, "naked" I immediately logged off the messenger and watched tv.

The next, Anne messaged me saying why did I log off and did not pursue the "meeting" with their boss. I said I couldn't do the things that he was letting me do. I thought that it was going to pursue much further if i did what he wanted. Ever since then, I did not log in to my yahoo messenger. 



"JENNY (not her real name), a 16-year-old lass, lounges lazily in the comforts of her room. Minutes later she would receive a flurry of text messages in her mobile phone. It is her pimp who informs Jenny that a client is interested in her "services."

Jenny is among the increasing number of girls engaging in a new mode of prostitution, where young girls are just texted by clients and pimps for their availability.

"They no longer have to be out on streets or in the brothels, they now wait in their houses where they will just be texted," said Jeanette Ampog, executive director of Talikala, a non-government organization dealing with prostituted women and children.

Ampog said those who engage in "text prostitution" are young girls mostly in their teens. Their number is steadily increasing based on the cases they receive. Text prostitutes are considered as freelancers who are not registered and mostly rely on pimps.

Other types of freelancers include "Akyat Barko" or women who climbed aboard foreign ships docked along the harbor to cater to sailors and mariners and "Prosti-Tuition" who are poor students unable to support their studies by regular means. And because they do not ply their trade on the streets or in clubs, it is hard to monitor them.

According to Ampog, there is an estimated 2,000 freelance prostitutes in Davao Region alone. She added that the number of prostitutes are increasing every year and getting younger.

Jenny has had numerous clients, one of her clients, a foreigner even gave her a brand new Macbook laptop. Subsequently her peers in the profession then referred her to Talikala, where she was given counseling.

Ampog said Jenny is interested in venturing into henna tattooing as a way out of her former job. She is still engaged in prostitution since she is single-handedly raising her daughter.

Since prostitution is rooted on poverty, it needs a concerted effort from all groups of the society, Ampog said.

Livelihood skills are just palliative measures and are difficult to preach to prostituted women particularly if they do not know their rights or are still undergoing abuse and oppression."

Source: http://www.sunstar.com.ph/davao/local-news/2011/10/05/text-prostitution-rise-ngo-183230

__________________________________________________________________________

Prostitution nowadays is rampant around Victoria Plaza, Central Bank and many more. And the root this crime is poverty. Some women, and today even men, think that prostitution is an easy way to earn money. When in fact they are only degrading themselves. They are removing their respect from themselves. They are just putting, aids, syphilis, gonorrhea, std's and other diseases in their bodies. And always remember that women who are selling their bodies are least respected. There was a story that my yaya told me, she had a friend who had a prostitute friend, let's name her Marry. 

"Marry was supposed to dance and "get a table" with a rich man. But she can't because she was on her period, but she had no choice because she really wanted the money. So she placed cotton balls in her vagina to block the blood. Then she "got a table" with a guy and made love to him. The next day, she went to the doctor to remove the cotton balls inside her vagina. The doctor knew that she was doing it often because of how her vagina looked like. The doctor, without hesitation just placed her hand inside the vagina and got the cotton balls. Of course Marry cried because of the pain, she didn't even use forceps to get the cotton. That is because she knew that she was a prostitute and the doctor was against prostitution."

In a way, the doctor wasn't supposed to do that because of her credibility. She should have did her job well. But the point of it all is that those things weren't supposed to happen if she hadn't entered the world of prostitution. There are other ways on how to earn money, they just have to find a way. As the saying goes, "kung ayaw may dahilan, kung gusto ay laging merong paraan" One just needs to know how to balance things out. 

__________________________________________________________________________

As a student, I could inspire people that there is more to life than just money. I can tell them that there are other ways onto earning money and not just prostitution. Moreover, back to my experience, If I didn't have the proper education and the boost of morale from my parents, I would have probably accepted the guy's offer into sending him a naked picture of mine. And my life today would revolve around sex, money, bars, drinks, smoking, and all those other vices.