Notes: Children in Sex Work - Part 3

In all my travels and years in development work, I always find the plight of children to be disturbing. As a foreigner and tourist in developing countries, I can’t help but notice children in the streets begging or being involved in the flesh trade. It is the latter that I find most upsetting. I know that the main reason behind these activities is poverty. But I can’t also help but wonder if children engaged in sex work are pure victims, or do they exercise human agency in making sense of, and living in the social world of sex work? What aspects of sex work are open to their decision-making? And how do children decide and interpret their engagement in this occupation?

This is the last part of my 3-part post.

THE RIGHT TO SELF-DETERMINATION
In all free societies, the right to self-determination is a fundamental right. As such, all people, adult and children alike, possess it. However, children being young and immature, are considered to be lacking in adult reasoning and knowledge, and are thus incapable of being responsible for their deeds or for making the rational decision for themselves. Adults, then, through the state, and primarily, the family, uphold the right of self-determination for the children and deny them the right to make a choice.

Thus, while children possess this fundamental right, they are unable to exercise it. Yet, the child is not a mere innocent and passive social actor. The children sex workers are not mere victims who do nothing about their circumstances. They may have limitations, but they are also active agents that actively participate in the production and reproduction of the social rules and structures in sex work, even if only at their level.

The mere recognition by the child that she is an agent, and by claiming her body as her own resource, the child has effectively shown that she is a knowledgeable and competent social agent, albeit a limited one. Whenever they disobey their managers, they always refer to their own body as theirs, and so the decision on what to do with it should only be theirs.

The children sex workers have also shown that they are capable of rational decisions based on the choices available to them. All of them underwent a rational decision-making process in choosing to remain in sex work and refusing assistance from government and other institutions. As stated earlier, both Two of the children find sex work as a better alternative to their past lives. One rationalized that sex work is better than begging or vending in the streets as it gives her security of shelter, food and stable income. The other prefers sex work over being raped by her uncle and step cousin. For her, sex work is purely an economic transaction between her and the customers where she can exercise her agency, while rape is actually a situation of abuse where her agency is repressed.

Findings of studies also demonstrate that the children sex workers are in fact very effective agents to the point of defeating the social welfare institutions with their refusal to cooperate. Most of the institutions that have attempted to help them have always asked them about their families. These institutions believe that the families should be informed of the children's plight. But this is exactly the opposite of what the children want.

Two children refused outside attempts to help them get out of sex work for fear that their families will be involved. Both know that sex work is considered to be deviant and unacceptable, and they are afraid that they will be ostracized by their own family and friends for being involved in sex work. Mary, for her part, did not want her family to know about her plight because of her uncle's threat of killing her parents and siblings if she reported the rape/abuse to the authorities.

I conclude that child sex workers are not mere victims of exploitation. They are victims of society’s perception of them. They are victims of the very theories and policies that seek to protect them. Yet, they are also active social actors in sex work who both break and follow rules that consequently keep them in sex work. Regardless of their lack of knowledge and skills, and despite their lack of resources, children sex workers are competent agents in sex work, who, like all adults in society, do not want other people to deprive them of their right to exercise their agency and self-determination.

The right to self-determination is a fundamental right that is central to the issue of children’s liberation. It is essential to all the rights of the child. Thus, society should acknowledge this right. However, the acknowledgment and acceptance of the right of the child to self-determination by society should also be balanced by the recognition of the limitations of the child’s agency. Therefore, it is imperative that policies and programs for possible interventions affecting children sex workers must take into consideration both the agency and structured constraints of the child.

This post (including parts 1 & 2) is based on the paper "Children in Sex Work: Is There Room for Social Agency" that I presented during the Fifth National Social Science Congress at the Philippine Social Science Council in May 2003. The views reflected on all parts of this 3-part post are mine alone and does not in any way assume to have the same ideals and statements of the Philippine Social Science Council . If you have any comments, please feel free to do so...

Notes: Children in Sex Work - Part 2

In all my travels and years in development work, I always find the plight of children to be disturbing. As a foreigner and tourist in developing countries, I can’t help but notice children in the streets begging or being involved in the flesh trade. It is the latter that I find most upsetting. I know that the main reason behind these activities is poverty. But I can’t also help but wonder if children engaged in sex work are pure victims, or do they exercise human agency in making sense of, and living in the social world of sex work? What aspects of sex work are open to their decision-making? And how do children decide and interpret their engagement in this occupation?

This is the second of this 3-part post.

THE CHILD AS A SOCIAL AGENT
People acquire the capacities necessary to be agents in the social world, at the same time that society both enables and constrains the exercise of this agency. By active participant, I presuppose the intentionality and willingness of the child’s agency regardless of, and given, its limited experience and bounded knowledge – connoting the concept of the child sex worker’s limited agency and bounded realities.

Thus, I contend that children sex workers have both the practical and discursive knowledge, however limited these may be, of the rules and structures in the social world. These include authority structures and role-specific social structures that guide the actions, interactions, and relations of social actors in the process of exercising their agency through restructuration (reproduction of social structures) and destructuration (breaking the rules and preventing the reproduction of structures).

This contention presupposes the rationality of the children sex workers as it is imperative to establish the intentionality of the child as active social agents, albeit a limited one given the limitations of the child’s knowledge and experience. While knowledgeability is founded less upon discursive consciousness than practical consciousness; human agents always know what they are doing on the level of discursive under some description.

I further contend that the child’s agency is limited compared to the adult; the child’s exercise of agency is bounded by the lack of knowledge and experience by virtue of their age, and not because of their incapacity for reason. The adult is more “rational” than the child in the sense that the adult has more time than the child to acquire knowledge and experience, and to exercise the ability to reason. In other words, the child is capable of reason as far as her knowledge and experience allows.

Thus, I also contend that the limited knowledge and experience of the children sex workers does not prevent them from exercising their agency in their everyday life situations, however limited her agency may be compared to the adult social actors in sex work.

The children sex workers I have interviewed and observed were 14 years old. Prior to sex work, the social worlds of these three children were limited only to the family and, in one case, to the gang, as well. The very limited knowledge and experience of the children sex workers, which form their discursive and practical consciousness, were founded on this bounded reality as they entered sex work.

Furthermore, the social rules and structures in sex work affect the agency of the child. Most of the social rules and structures in sex work are mainly based on the social constructions of childhood and sexuality characterized by adult and male bias. Thus, as the child exercises her agency in sex work in her everyday interactions and relations with the pimps, managers, and customers, the child finds her agency to be limited not only by her bounded reality, but also by the social rules and structures in sex work.

Wait for the last part of this 3-part post...

Notes: Poverty and Development – Part 3

As a development worker working and traveling in developing countries, I noticed one common and disturbing theme: POVERTY. For me, poverty is THE development issue. It has been a perennial problem that majority of the world’s population faces. But the lack of impact of development efforts on developing countries, despite the years and the billions of dollars spent on programs makes me wonder if development programs helping poor countries as intended or are they fostering dependency on international aid, corruption within the government and consequently, furthering poverty and underdevelopment? This has led me to one major question: what have we not done right?

This is the third part of my effort at examining the historical development trends and progress, with a focus on the Philippines.

THE PHILIPPINE BRAIN DRAIN
The government’s inability to utilize local resources, knowledge and skills for the development of the country is starkly evident in the education-employment situation. The high literacy rate of the Philippines did not produce the long term impact on development as expected.

It is notable that government-run public schools offer free elementary and secondary education to all Filipino children, resulting to the high literacy rate. Only a fraction of high school graduates proceeds to the next level because college or university education is very expensive. Even subsidized state colleges and universities are still too expensive for poor people to afford.

But Filipinos value education so much that poor people would go to some lengths, such as selling or borrowing (as collateral) on their meager properties (land, house, livestock, others) just to send their children to college and university. Thus, there are still a considerable number of university graduates every year who need jobs that the government is unable to provide.

This surplus of skilled labor consequently led to the Philippine “brain drain” phenomenon as more and more Filipinos seek employment abroad. The low salary rates in the country pushed even those who already hold jobs to seek employment in other countries that offer higher wages, even if it meant having to work at a much lower level than their qualifications or previous positions. Coming from the biggest English-speaking nation in Asia, with relatively cheap labor, Filipinos were the preferred choice in non-English-speaking countries.

The first to go were the teachers, midwives, accountants and secretaries to work as domestic helpers initially in neighboring rich countries like Hong Kong and Singapore. The geographical coverage eventually included Saudi Arabia and other gulf countries as the type of work also expanded to include other service-related employment, such as nursing, entertainment, hotel, restaurant and construction, among others. The recent batch of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) was mostly comprised of medical practitioners in response to the increase in the demand for health care workers in Europe and the USA.

As gender equality spread in developed nations in the west during the last quarter of the 20th century, more jobs became available to women. Nursing, which was predominantly a female occupation became the least preferred work as women in these countries chose less demanding jobs with higher pay. Registration in nursing schools dropped, consequently leading to inadequate labor supply in hospitals and other health care institutions. Thus, by the start of the 21st century when European countries and the US found themselves needing more health care service providers to cater to the baby boomers of the 60’s, they were forced to look for labor supply outside their own territories.

Having a surplus of nurses, the Philippines became one of the first, if not the biggest supplier of health care service providers to these countries. The English language skill of Filipinos, coupled with other Filipinos characteristics and values have boosted the demand for Filipino health care workers. Enrollment in nursing and health care courses in colleges and universities increased. New training institutes specifically offering short courses on health care sprung around the country. Some of these short courses are bundled with promises of immediate employment abroad after completion of the course.

The salaries of these health workers in Europe and the US are higher than employment wages and income from professional practice in the Philippines. This encourages licensed doctors and qualified professionals from other fields (education, engineering, accounting, etc.) to go back to school to study either the four-year nursing course (for those who can afford the time and tuition) or the short health care courses.

The migration of skilled workers caused more problems other than the brain drain. It has divided families, leaving children with at least only one parent (sometimes even none). Many of the husbands and wives left behind have become dependent on their spouse’s remittances. The absence of the spouse led husbands to seek other women and wives other men. The children experienced emotional issues, resulting to delinquency and other social problems. A number of husbands and wives are known to squander their spouse’s income on alcohol, gambling and luxury items. Thus, many OFWs find that they have no savings when they come home, pushing them to work abroad again. And this becomes the OFW cycle that traps them.

The brain drain phenomenon however, also had positive outcomes especially at the national and household levels. Overseas jobs have absorbed a considerable percentage of unemployed Filipinos. The remittances of OFWs comprise a sizable percentage of the GDP. It has lifted many families from poverty, allowing them to buy properties and send children to good schools.

Yet, the positive gains from the brain drain are precariously anchored on the economies of other countries. The current economic recession in Europe and the US has already affected much of the world’s economies, including Japan, one of major export markets (along with the US) of Philippine products. Being export-oriented (labor and products), the Philippines is expected to be gravely hit. The rising industry of customer service call centers in the country, which has somehow slackened the brain drain, is also expected to take a beating. These companies are mainly US and Europe-owned. As the recession continues, the companies will be forced to shrink their customer service employees in an effort to save the business from total collapse and bankruptcy.

The effects of the recession are already being felt. Many OFWs, along with call center employees find themselves unemployed. Those in cash crop production have to contend with the shrinking export market. At present, employment rate is increasing and there is a surge of OFW returnees who lost their jobs and consequently leading to a drop in remittances. All of these only prove the superficiality of Philippine development.

Please wait for the last part of this 4-part post...

Notes: Poverty and Development – Part 2

As a development worker working and traveling in developing countries, I noticed one common and disturbing theme: POVERTY. For me, poverty is THE development issue. It has been a perennial problem that majority of the world’s population faces. But the lack of impact of development efforts on developing countries, despite the years and the billions of dollars spent on programs makes me wonder if development programs helping poor countries as intended or are they fostering dependency on international aid, corruption within the government and consequently, furthering poverty and underdevelopment? This has led me to one major question: what have we not done right?

This is the second part of my effort at examining the historical development trends and progress, with a focus on the Philippines.

DEVELOPMENT IN THE PHILIPPINES
Having a history of more than half a century of development work, the Philippine experience may be the best example to illustrate my answer. Its development history has been driven by both capitalist-led interventions and socialist ideals. The oldest-known non-government organization (NGO), the Philippine Rural Reconstruction Movement (PRRM) was founded in 1952 based on Dr. Sun Yat Sen’s…

This long history of development in the Philippines has resulted to several positive outcomes. Today, the country has one of the highest literacy rates (98%) in the world. While there are still human rights violations, it boasts of having one of the highest levels of gender equality among developing nations, especially in education and employment.

Many sectoral organizations have formed national-level federations and international alliances to represent and advocate for grassroots interests. The enactment of the Local Government Code (LGC) has empowered local communities to be independent and to address problems at the local level. There has also been a noticeable decrease in the number of people living below the poverty line as the proportion of the middle class expanded.

These gains however, are currently being threatened. The World Bank has categorized the Philippines as a middle income country at the start of the 21st century (year?) due to the rise in its HDI and GDP. As a consequence, much of the international donor agencies pulled out from the country, resulting to a chain reaction starting with the closure of majority of local NGOs. Without support from the NGOs, many cooperatives and community-based organizations (CBOs) collapsed, further weakening the civil society movement.

In addition, majority of financial programs such as credit and livelihood were stopped, and environmental protection and rehabilitation activities were abandoned. In less than a decade the country’s development has regressed, leading the World Bank and other donor agencies to question if they had pulled out of the country too soon.

Blaming the country’s regression solely on the pull-out of international funding is oversimplifying the situation. There are of course several other factors that contributed to the Philippines’ regression. The Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) implemented in 1988 under the Aquino administration failed to protect farmers from decisions of landowners to convert agricultural lands into residential, commercial or industrial areas.

These converted lands are exempted from CARP and were not distributed to the farmers who have worked on it for decades and centuries. The land remains with the landowner. Moreover, the CARP and the government in general, failed to subsidize small farmers, leaving them vulnerable to exorbitant prices of agricultural inputs.

As the Philippine government pursued industrialization, many farmers found it more practical to sell their land for conversion than to continue tilling them. Many of those who continued farming turned to cash crops which generated more revenues than agricultural food crops. These land conversions and increase in cash crop production led to the scarcity of food in the country. It is ironic that the Philippines, host to the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) established to increase rice production, ended up importing rice from other countries that benefitted from IRRI’s research and training.

Please wait for the 3rd part of this 4-part post...

Notes: Poverty and Development – Part 1

As a development worker and tourist in developing countries, I noticed one common and disturbing theme: POVERTY. For me, poverty is THE development issue. It has been a perennial problem that majority of the world’s population faces. Billions of dollars have been spent on thousands of various poverty interventions. Countless seminars, fora, conferences and conventions have been held to discuss poverty and come up with workable solutions. Technological innovations have focused on increasing food production.

Despite all these efforts, poverty still remains as a huge problem in itself, as well as both a major cause and consequence of other issues that underdeveloped and developing nations struggle with. This apparent lack of impact of development initiatives on world poverty has prompted many development stakeholders to ask why, including me. It makes me wonder if development programs helping poor countries as intended or are they fostering dependency on international aid, corruption within the government and consequently, furthering poverty and underdevelopment. So, what have we not done right?

ACROSS THE YEARS
Development paradigms, approaches and interventions have evolved throughout the years. These are intricately intertwined with political-economic discourses. The first paradigm equated development with economic progress. It proposed that poverty can only be addressed through economic-oriented interventions.

With this, the socialist-communist perspective argued that only by revolutionizing the political-economy of the country can true development prosper -- by eliminating inequality, poverty will be addressed. From the other end of the political-economic spectrum, the capitalists believed that strengthening the economy is the only way to development and address poverty.

The cold war brought on not only the arms race, but also a development race. As capitalist nations tried to prevent the spread of socialism-communism to the rest of the world, development funding and interventions naturally poured in from them into the underdeveloped and developing countries. They believed that effects of economic progress will trickle down to poor countries and communities.

However, as time passed and very little change was perceived in the poverty situation of the beneficiary-nations, development planners and managers realized that economic progress, while an important prerequisite to development, is not the only aspect that needs to be addressed.

Acknowledging the cyclic nature of poverty, development initiatives moved to encompass education and health among others. This resulted to a more comprehensive measure of development. The Gross Domestic Product (GDP), considered as a reliable measure was then replaced by the Human Development Index (HDI). In line with the new encompassing approach, the HDI includes indicators on education and health, along with economic indicators like income and employment.

While equality, human rights and people’s participation are considered integral to democracy, these were yet to be realized in a capitalist-led development. Thus, as the socialist-communist nations pursued their brand of development with the same ideals of equality and empowerment, and gaining new allies along the way, development planners and managers from the rich capitalist nations had to reconsider their approaches. Equality, human rights and empowerment moved from the political sphere into the development arena.

A whole new development paradigm took shape by the last quarter of the 20th century. From the top-to-bottom approach typical of capitalism, interventions moved on to the bottom-to-top participatory approach. The focus changed from economic-centered empowerment to general political empowerment. The scope covers not only economic progress but a more holistic development that includes environmental sustainability as well. And finally, the method changed from being curative problem-oriented to preventive awareness-raising and capacity-building.

This is still the development paradigm that shapes the current development approaches and interventions. Yet, as I have noted earlier, poverty still remains, if not increasingly becoming the biggest development problem in the world. This brings us back to the question of “why.”

Please wait for Part 2 of this 4-part post...