In 1987, young Rosario Baluyot was worth merely $4 in the Philippines. She was purchased for prostitution and was killed under the torture of her clients. Among them was Dr. Heinrich, an Austrian physician, who took her and her companion to a hotel where he subjected them to sexual abuse. Tragically, Rosario died seven months later from a cervical infection.
Sexual exploitation is a global issue happening not just in the Philippines. The Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia form a major hub for the global commercial sexual exploitation of minors. The Inter-Agency Terminology Guidelines for the Protection of Children from Sexual Abuse and Exploitation defines sexual exploitation as a child engaging in sexual activities in return for something from a third party or themselves. In the Philippines, underage girls sell sex to the pimps for money. They work in bars and night clubs under a person called the Mamasan, who runs the business. The Mamasans usually pay the girls with a minimum wage and force them to work restlessly. These exploited underage girls call themselves, pokpok, casa girls, puta, and bar girls. These phrases place them in the category of adult prostitutes. In many South Asian countries, sex tourism, trips taken mainly to engage in commercial sexual activity with local residents, is widespread, serving as a significant source of income for criminal organizations. Much of the sex tourism targets underage girls. To cater to the pimps, criminals traffic girls in the Philippines and sell them to Mamasans. According to a 2016 report by ECPAT, an anti-children sexual exploitation organization, it is estimated that 60,000 to 100,000 girls aged 14 to 17 are trafficked in the Philippines every year. Aside from human trafficking, child prostitution can also happen when a girl is pimped out by her parents or even voluntarily due to poverty. Pabunag, who now works for an anti-prostitution, anti-trafficking organization in the Philippines explains the reason behind the casa girls: “Being poor and being vulnerable is very risky and very hard, especially for women and especially for children who want to finish studies and wanted to go to school and wanted to help the family.” The country’s regular natural disasters along with COVID-19 have made poverty more universal. Although child labor is forbidden, the children were pushed to prostitution. During the COVID-19 pandemic, sexual exploitation in nightclubs shifted into online business and became doubly more rampant; in 2021 alone, 2 million children in the Philippines suffered online sexual abuse and sexual exploitation.
Child prostitution is not a modern invention but a legacy of an unhealed wound of thePhilippines. During the American colonial period, prostitution became widespread. The U.S. territorial administration in the Philippines supported this practice, labeling it a “military necessity” and even facilitating the transport of prostitutes from areas like Davao. Despite numerous requests to end the practice, U.S. officials were reluctant to impose a ban, allowing it to persist. The long-term presence of the U.S. military significantly influenced the sex industry in nearby towns like Olongapo and Angeles, which developed into well-known “entertainment hubs” for servicemen. Although the bases were closed in 1991, these cities remained economically tied to the sex trade, perpetuating cycles of poverty, social stigma for women, and discrimination against their children, many of whom become involved in prostitution at a young age.
Governmental negligence toward this issue perpetuates the historical predicament for women, especially girls, in this country. While prostitution is illegal in the country, it is largely tolerated. Recently, President Rodrigo Duterte, during a business forum in India, even went so far as to encourage prostitution and sex exploitation, when he said that he wants 42 virgins to serve every one who comes to his country just like the 42 virgins waiting in heaven if someone dies as a martyr. This flippant attitude toward such a serious topic suggests the government’s negligence in protecting its most vulnerable
citizens. Additionally, the law enforcement authorities often overlook the illegal actions that take place in many bars and nightclubs in exchange for bribes; this blatant corruption facilitates the prosperity of the establishments.
At the same time, the Philippines is extremely in need of resources; The Philippine National anti-population trafficking department has only a few police officers. This means that they rely on the support of Non Governmental Organizations (NGO). Luckily,people who cared about the children in the Philippines made actions to put an end to the exploitation. In 2001, Kirwan founded Destiny Rescue, an organization that rescues children who have been sexually exploited. Rescuing exploited children is very challenging because Kirwan and his team don’t know where the sex trades take place. So, in Kirwan’s undercover operation, he has to impersonate a pedophile trying to have sex with the casa girls but secretly help them to escape. According to Kirwan, the rescue is completely different from those Hollywood movies where the hero crawls out from the back window with a child in his arms. The process happens in a much more clandestine way – “build trust, make an offer, give them time to think about it, then pick them up and make it safe.” Building trust determines everything. “When we first started, as soon as we saw a kid in a bar we’d call them over and tell them who we were and we had 100 percent of the girls say no. It took us about six months to work out what that problem was and it was they just didn’t trust us,” he said. To gain trust, he had to convince the child that he was different from any other clients. What the children had suffered caused the fragility in their trust, making it difficult for them to accept help from Kirwan. All of these actions had to happen covertly, or else the Mamasan would notice.
The dedicated efforts of NGOs and international humanitarian agencies are helping to avert the tragedies faced by exploited children. Thirty years after the tragedy of Rosario Baluyot, more girls were rescued from the nightmare thanks to many organized efforts. Similar to Kirwan, Marlyn Capio works undercover in PREDA, an NGO that protects children, often visiting the bars in the red light district to look for girls who are being sexually exploited. Capio was once one of the casa girls herself, but the rescue operation from PREDA changed her life trajectory. Now, she devotes her work to fight against child traffickers. In one of Capio’s operations, she rescued Leilane who started working as an “entertainer” in Olongapo at 14. Before the rescue, she lived in a bar for a minimum wage instead of going to school. Now, she is making friends in school and dreaming about being a flight attendant.
Child prostitution is not just the Philippines is a century-old problem and a global challenge. Nevertheless, activists like Kirwan and Capio are leading a strong organizing solution. In the past seven years, Kirwan has rescued more than 3000 children across the world. To him, every rescue is a victory. These undercover operations not only rescue many children but also offer a better future of the country. Efforts like these take meaningful steps toward protecting children, allowing them to sleep carefree at night.