When I was a college student at the University of the Philippines, I was quite smug about my position on prostitution. I thought that the most progressive stand to take was to legalize the sex industry โ to allow the women to do what they want to.
I felt hipper when men around me had the same position. Myra, one of the women in Cubao, was raped by her uncle when she was 5 years old. At 7, her father also started abusing her sexually until she got pregnant at the age of She ran away, worked in a home as domestic worker, then in a canteen as a dishwasher, where she was recruited to "work" in a bar.
At 14, with two other teenagers, Myra was raped by the bar owner and told that, from then on, they would be serving customers. At 15, she was brought by a soldier to a brothel. She again got pregnant and was brought to Quezon City, where she escaped.
She ended up in the streets of Cubao. She was sometimes brought by a pimp to climb ships in Batangas. Lyn was 8 when she was raped by an adult male cousin. When she reached home, she was scolded by her mother for dirtying her clothes. She did not have anyone to get help from. She stopped studying even as a bright student. She drowned herself in alcohol and cigarettes and went out often with friends.
Later, she left her hometown in Pangasinan and reached Monumento. There, a man offered her a home, but she was raped first. She went back to the streets and was offered money to go with customers. Penniless and having nowhere to go, she went with the pimp and was trapped in a brothel in Angeles. She later escaped to Monumento and then to Cubao, where she continued in prostitution.
