Photo taken from Gagmay’ng Tunob sa Kadalanan teaser video
DAVAO CITY, Philippines — The perception that a brighter life in the hometown of the country’s President has attracted women from other provinces to migrate here.
Sadly, Janice Pinky Moreno, monitoring coordinative and evaluation section head of the Integrated Gender and Development Division said some migrants are “forced by the circumstance” to eventually resort to prostitution.
“The city is known to be a highly-urbanized city and as President’s hometown,” Moreno said in a press conference Thursday, October 5.
She said some women are burdened with “more economic needs and lesser opportunities of employment”.
She stressed poverty remains one reason why prostitution is still prevalent.
The IGDD had served a total of 255 children and prostituted women from January to September this year, higher than the 217 served in 2016.
However, Moreno stressed that the figures are only those who have been “catered” by Talikala Inc., pointing that the total number of prostituted women all over the city goes around 7,000.
The same record also revealed that prostituted women age ranges from as young as 12 years old up to 68 years old.
During the third quarter this year, the city government relaunched its ‘Mag-Negosyo Ta Day’ project, a social entrepreneurship program for women including “women in especially difficult circumstances” such as prostituted women.
The program is aimed to empower about 3,000 women beneficiaries by providing economic opportunities and livelihood trainings for them to a have a sustainable livelihood.
Apart from the recently launched program, Moreno said other government agencies and civil society organizations also conduct livelihood trainings to help the marginalized women in the city.
However, Moreno mentioned that although interventions are being done by the city government, the increase in prostitution is still inevitable if the problems of poverty and migration remains unaddressed. (davaotoday.com)
