Farm Girls Turn to Prostitution, Want GMA to know
By Blanche Rivera
Philippine Daily Inquirer
October 13, 2005

She has the burnt skin and sturdy frame of a farm worker. Last month, Gina (not her real name) left the rice fields of Montalban to work as a GRO in a Caloocan night club so she could earn enough money to buy medicines for her 11-year-old daughter.

GRO, or guest relations officer is a euphemism for bar girl.

" I came out so the President will know what is happening to women like us. She is also a woman," said Gina, 29 who was presented by the Amihan National Federation of Peasant Women at a press conference yesterday in advance of the commemoration of Rural Women's Day on October 15.

Amihan claimed that farming women in Rizal, Quezon, Pampanga ang other provinces have been reduced to prostitution "to save their families from starvation."

It said those working in the coconut plantations of Bicol have resorted to giving sexual favors to the plantation guards whenever they are caught stealing the nuts.

" They have nothing with which to plow the fields, and yet we hear of P728 million in fertilizer funds going to congressmen and governors," said Amihan chair Carmen Buena.

Amihan, which claims to have members in 32 provinces said accounts of rural women selling their bodies were becoming more and more frequent because of poverty in the countryside.

There are around 23 million rural women in the Philippines. There are an estimated 800,000 prostituted women and children in the country. Many of them come from the provinces.

Amihan yesterday joined other groups calling for the ouster of President Macapagal Arroyo with the launch of a signature campaign, and two other Amihan members from Quezon were the first to sign the petition.

Gina said her family earned about 5 kilograms of rice for a week's work in the upland rice farms of Montalban. She also hires herself out as a laundry woman for an additional two kgs of rice. She said her family survives on "lugaw" (rice broth) eating only once a day.

If her husband is lucky, he might get an additional P70 a day for carrying vegetables from the mountains to the market.Gina also chops wood for charcoal and is paid P15 for every 100 pieces of chopped wood.

When her eldest daughter contracted urinary tract infection in August, the mother of five had to go back to the job she left years ago. She had worked as a dancer in Caloocan, where she earned up to P700 a night.

" That was just for the weekend, but I can't say I will not do it again. I don't know what will happen to my children. Life is very hard," said Gina, who covered her face with a shirt as she told her tale.

Buena, recounted the story of Sarah (not her real name) of Pampanga. A single parent with four kids, Sarah has admitted to engaging in paid sex in exchange for a few kilos of rice and grocery items.

Her father's two hectare field was sold when the old man became ill.Left without a field to farm to support her family, Sarah resorted to prostitution.

"She's scared that she could be pushed into it again," Buena said.

Sarah was unable to appear at the press conference because one of her children was sick, said Buena.