Magdalena:
Is there a need to decriminalize prostitution?
Due to the hodgepodge of too many events that cram front pages, many haven't noticed that some lawmakers are now lobbying for the decriminalization of prostitution. It isn't new-both prostitution and the proposal. On TV, we often get a dose of investigative programs that lead to the apprehension of sex workers that thrive in con massage parlors. Even here in San Carlos, we know how a police officer drove away the iconic "Magdalena sa Kawayanan" after the ladies tried to hitch him in unknowing he was a police officer.
Now, based on United Nations recommendations, the Philippine Commission on Women (PCW) is gunning for the decriminalization of one of the world's oldest professions (though not officially the oldest, my college history professor contends). PCW Executive Director Emmeline Verzosa, in a statement, calls prostitution "an exploitative system that commodifies and dehumanizes women, men and children who are being victimized within the system."
Instead of jailing sex workers, it is now sought that only those who 'buy' and 'profit' from the trade be held liable. This move, which, of course, is vehemently opposed by the Catholic Church, is said to help curb the upward trend of sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS, and to help women, men and children involved in the trade to regain their dignity and live normal lives again.
Before heated debates in favor or against this legislative move occur, may I first ask: Since when did we, as a society, treat prostitution criminal? Haven't we, as a society again, been fanning and feeding the flame for sexual gratification that propels the cycle of supply and demand?
A few months back when I talked to some authorities at the City Health Office about HIV/AIDS, I learned that sex workers here are encouraged to seek monthly medical check-up to diagnose and treat STDs and sexually transmitted infections. These workers get a card, a clean card if you may, that proves they're 'fit to work.' In the process, health workers do not go to the police to disclose the identities of these patients, by virtue of the ethics of doctor-nurse-patient confidentiality, despite the sporadic staging of raids in night clubs in some parts of the country.
Stepping beyond their moral beliefs, these health workers render service to sex workers treating them as mere patients not criminals.
In short, what is needed is not another controversial bill, another spark plug for divisive disagreement like RH Bill, but a more comprehensive campaign to all sex workers to regularly monitor their health and for the government to make available the medicines that will treat STDs and STIs. After all, it is important to take note that based on the recent Department of Health study, same sex union, not prostitution, is now becoming the top reason for the spread of HIV/AIDs.
Indeed there is a need to review how the state and society looks at prostitution especially where children are involved, knowing that Asian countries are now at the supply end of pedophiles. Obviously, in this case, parents who push their children to peddle sex, as is the case in some Cebu towns, and those who traffic children should receive the entire weight of liability. There is, perhaps, a need to increase jail time and speed up prosecution to make sure traffickers rot behind bars and won't be able to destroy the future of more kids in the most debasing way imaginable-which is to put them on sex trade.
But where adult workers are involved, it is not much about decriminalization as a change of perspective. Why even some law enforcers buy services from sex workers! It would be the height of hypocrisy if policemen and some public officials will say they do not have this speck on their sleeves.
So, how are we to change this perspective then? Do we say that prostitution is no longer a crime so anyone can now avail of it in the light of day? Or do we discourage our population from availing of peddled sexual services and instead commit to monogamous relationships? That would be to change the way male brains are wired since Stone Age!
Yes, bitter and difficult though it may seem, anti-prostitution bills aren't going to stop the demand and so the supply will continue. There will always be a chunk of our ballooning population who prefer paid sexual services over monogamous relationships and they will continue to seek the gratification of their drives.
At this point, what is absolutely needed is maturity among those who 'buy' sex in order to understand that, in the words of renowned Filipino relationship and sex therapist Margarita Go Singco-Holmes, "Great sex is borne out of great relationship."
No law could be passed to ingrain this principle in the minds of people. It takes societal maturity after all.
NB: The United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS recenly released the results of a study that cases of HIV/AIDS in the country increased by 2.25 percent for 2011-2012.
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