WORLD: WORKABLE APPROACH REQUIRED TO ERADICATE SEX TRADE

From: Ouko joachim omolo
Voices of Justice for Peace
Regional News

BY FR JOACHIM OMOLO OUKO, AJ
NAIROBI-KENYA
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2012

Bishop Broderick Pabillo, Auxiliary Bishop of Manila’s approach to new evangelization is not only mission impossible but also calls for yet another workable approach. Pabillo who also serves as chairman of the National Secretariat for Social Action, Justice and Peace wants women in Philippines to be given real rights and decent jobs and not prostitution.

Pabillo has not only denounced the United Nations over growing criticisms regarding the international organization’s recent report recommending that sex-related jobs be legalized in the Philippines but also stated categorically that prostitution is immoral and must be urgently eradicated in Philippines.

Bishop Pabillo has also rejected the idea that sex workers should be supplied with condoms to help control the spread of HIV or other sexually transmitted diseases, arguing that HIV is still prevalent even in countries where prostitution is legal and using condoms.

According to Pabillo, the only way to eradicate prostitution in Philippines is for the government to focus on behavioral change. He thinks that by educating young people that sex outside marriage was a grave sin and could lead them to hell where there is everlasting fire would help to change their behaviors towards premarital sex.

It is not that sex workers are not aware that sex outside marriage is immoral they enter the industry to support poor parents, themselves, siblings according to recent survey.

According to survey of women working as masseuses indicated that 34 percent of them explained their choice of work as necessary to support poor parents, 8 percent to support siblings and 28 percent to support husbands or boyfriends. More than 20 percent said the job was well paid.

Over 50 percent of the women surveyed in Philippine massage parlors said they carried out their work “with a heavy heart,” and 20 percent said they were “conscience-stricken because they still considered sex with customers a sin.

Philippines is more than 80 percent Catholic and the church leadership thinks that by promoting abstinence young people may be able to adhere to the church’s doctrine for that matter.

Being predominantly catholic country, is why some local authorities, such as the mayor of Manila City, prohibit the distribution of condoms in government health facilities even for the non Catholics.

It is also why in late 2003, President Arroyo was praised by religious conservatives for taking Pesos (P)50 million (U.S.$888,000) from a fund allocated to contraceptive programs under former President Joseph Estrada and awarding the sum to a nongovernmental organization (NGO), Couples for Christ, to teach natural family planning methods.

While bishops in the Philippines have always opposed condoms for moral reasons, more recently some have begun to buttress their moral arguments with claims about the ineffectiveness of condoms.

These include the claim that condoms contain microscopic pores that are permeable by HIV pathogens, a view that is shared by such influential bishops as former archbishop of Manila, Jaime Cardinal Sin, and the head of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for the Family, Alfonso Lopez Trujillo.

It is also why sex workers interviewed by Human Rights Watch said they had been given HIV tests in government clinics without their informed consent – a practice that has been shown to drive people from health and prevention services and increase their risk of infection. Being predominantly catholic country, apart from the church, some local authorities, such as the mayor of Manila City, prohibit the distribution of condoms in government health facilities.

In late 2003, President Arroyo was praised by religious conservatives for taking Pesos (P)50 million (U.S.$888,000) from a fund allocated to contraceptive programs under former President Joseph Estrada and awarding the sum to a nongovernmental organization (NGO), Couples for Christ, to teach natural family planning methods.

While bishops in the Philippines have always opposed condoms for moral reasons, more recently some have begun to buttress their moral arguments with claims about the ineffectiveness of condoms.

These include the claim that condoms contain microscopic pores that are permeable by HIV pathogens, a view that is shared by such influential bishops as former archbishop of Manila, Jaime Cardinal Sin, and the head of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for the Family, Alfonso Lopez Trujillo.

Besides repressing condoms and HIV/Aids information, the Philippines also acts in ways that radically increase the likelihood of a rapid outbreak and spread of HIV/Aids among populations at high risk, particularly sex workers.

Sex workers had been given HIV tests in government clinics without their informed consent – a practice that has been shown to drive people from health and prevention services and increase their risk of infection according to Human Rights Watch.

It is also why police routinely used possession of condoms as evidence to arrest and prosecute prostitution. Prostitutes have plenty of condoms in their bags in any case their clients did not carry them. They use condoms to avoid being infected by HIV viruses that cause Aids.

Most women and men enter sex trade industries due to lack of employment in Philippines, which remains the highest in the country compared with six other Asian countries.

The total number of unemployed persons in the country reached 2.9 million in January 2012 or 7.2 percent of the 40.3 million Filipinos in the labor force according to University of the Philippines economist Benjamin E. Diokno who admits that joblessness is more severe in the Philippines.

Jorge V. Sibal, dean of the University of the Philippines School of Labor and Industrial Relations, attributed the result to the relatively slower economic growth of the country. The country’s GDP gross domestic product is a little bit below the average economic growth in the region. Also, economic growth in the Philippines is much slower compared with the other six countries.

Almost one-third, or 32.8 percent, of the young unemployed Filipinos are high school graduates, 13.8 percent are college undergraduates, and 21 percent are college graduates. This explains why child prostitution is on rise.

In April, of the estimated 62.8 million Filipinos, aged 15 and above, 40.6 million are in the labor force, up slightly from the estimated 39.7 million recorded in April 2011 according to the study made by an international research group.

The research group cited the much higher population growth in the Philippines compared to its neighbors as the main cause of the country’s high unemployment rate. The Philippines has now a population of almost 100 million.

Another factor that compounds the unemployment problem is the low gross domestic product (GDP) growth in the Philippines, which was only 3.7 percent last year, the lowest in the region. The study said that less economic activities mean less spending by companies and thus making it difficult to create new jobs for the people.

Another criticism aired by some sectors is that the country’s education system continues to turn out college graduates whose training and skills are not attuned to the needs of the labor market both at home and abroad.

Against the background that women trafficking is alarming. About 150,000 Filipina women have been trafficked into prostitution in Japan according to recent Press Statement, Bangladesh National Women Lawyers Association.

There are 400,000 to 500,000 prostituted persons in the Philippines. Prostituted persons are mainly adult women, but there are also male, transvestite and child prostitutes, both girls and boys with an estimated 9,000 or more children involved in Manila alone.

This is not to mention children on the streets which make up approximately 75 percent of the street children in the Philippines. They work on the streets but do not live there. They generally have a home to return to after working, and some even continue to attend school while working long hours on the streets.

Completely abandoned children have no family ties and are entirely on their own for physical and psychological survival. They make up approximately 5-10 percent of the street children in the Philippines.

This process of predominantly catholic colonizers, it enabled the Church to play a central role in the lives of the people because it touched every aspect of their existence from birth to growth to marriage to adulthood to death. Whether the natives clearly understood the tenets and dogmas of the Roman Catholic Church is of course another matter.

In the course of colonization, the friars constructed opulent Baroque-style church edifices. These structures are still found today everywhere across the country and they symbolize the cultural influence of Spain in Filipino life.

Through these influences, the Church afforded the Filipinos abundant opportunities for both solemn rites and joyous festivities and celebrations known as “fiestas.” The services inside the Catholic churches often spilled out into the thoroughfare in the form of colorful and pageant-filled religious processions in which the rich and the poor participated.

This calls for the Catholic Church to change its approach to catechism, especially in Africa where the first white missionaries came to literally buy people to embrace Catholicism.

In Africa white missionaries did not want money from their faithful, instead they supported them, gave them free education, healthcare, built for them churches, schools, hospitals and paid for them school fees for their children.

The white missionaries did not want money from their faithful that is why whether you paid ten cent for sadaka (offertory) they did not mind because they did not want your money. That is why up to now Catholics still pay sadaka ranging from one shilling to 20 shillings at most.

It explains why black missionaries who are taking over from whites get it very difficult to run parishes because majority of their Christians still believe that they should be everything to them just as white missionaries were.

Many Catholics have abandoned Catholicism to other denominations where they think they can get help. Even pastors fight over powers to control finances. It has become a nightmare and a big challenge for churches in Africa and developing worlds.

Fr Joachim Omolo Ouko, AJ
People for Peace in Africa
Tel +254-7350-14559/+254-722-623-578
E-mail omolo.ouko@gmail.com

Peaceful world is the greatest heritage
That this generation can give to the generations
To come- All of us have a role.

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