By Vote at Yahoo! PH Pitong Pinoy
undefinedJosephine Erece, a missionary and pastor with the Rivers of the Living
Water church, had had enough of seeing teenagers as young as 13 working
in the videoke clubs in Isulan, Sultan Kudarat, so she brought them
home.
It was not an easy decision to make, but Erece says her heart broke whenever she saw them.
“So I prayed about it, and it was like God said: This is what you’re going to do.”
This,
despite harassment from military officers she says owns the bars. She
says she was surprised when soldiers suddenly occupied the house next to
hers, as if keeping an eye on her. Although there were threats of
harassment, her mission to keep young girls from prostitution continues.
Getting
them to come home with her was the easy part: many of the girls lived
in the clubs or in dorms that were “worse than pig pens” since they lost
their homes and parents to the conflict in Mindanao. “These are not
like the prostitutes there in Manila who probably live better,” she
says.
Finding them other ways to support themselves was an
entirely different challenge, though. According to the latest
government data, around 35 percent of people in the province live in
poverty, which drives girls into prostitution. “I talked to them, and
they said they do it because they needed the money,” she says.
Without
options, Erece knew the girls would go back to prostitution soon
enough. “I saw that they wanted to change, but had no way to do it,” she
tells Yahoo! Southeast Asia.
So she set up the I Care-Mission for
Asia foundation and linked up with a U.S.-based charity. She has led the
girls through therapy for their trauma and plans to have them learn to
style hair or other skills that will help them find work.
In the
meantime, she has made sure they have PhilHealth coverage, food, and
shelter. Some of the girls tested positive for sexually-transmitted
infections, and she has made sure they get treatment for that too.
“It
would really help if they could get vocational training from TESDA
(Technical Education and Skills Development Authority),” Erece says,
although some of the girls she has rescued are already doing better even
without skills training.
One has found a job tending an Internet
café, two work at a bakery, and another helps a local tailor. They may
not be glamorous jobs but they keep the girls away from
sexually-transmitted infections as well as from abuse.
“I try to
find jobs for them. I won’t let them move out if they don’t have jobs
yet,” Erece says, knowing they might go back to the videoke clubs. Erece
takes care of 10 girls, but the girls living in her house now are a
second batch. “Once the girls have jobs and can support themselves, I
look for others to save,” she says.
Even those that refuse to
come with her get help and counseling too. Erece often invites them out
to lunch to talk about why they do what they do, and to tell them that there are
other ways to make money. “Many of them have lost hope, and we need to
give them that hope,” she says.
