Thursday, November 02, 2006
Councilor calls on colleagues to back anti-prostitution bill
COUNCILOR Angela Librado-Trinidad challenged her colleagues to take a stand for prostituted women and children last Tuesday at the Davao City Council's regular session.
Librado, in behalf of women and children advocates of Davao City, called once again for the repeal of articles 202 and 341 of the Revised Penal Code, which penalizes prostituted women and for the passage of the Anti-Prostitution Bill.
In Davao City alone, there are about 3000 prostituted women and children. Four hundred of these are children, the youngest of them aged 10 years old.
The 13th congress in 2005 has proposed the Anti-Prostitution Act addressing the system of prostitution, imposing penalties on its perpetrators, providing protective measures and support system for its victims and decriminalizing vagrancy.
Librado said that under the proposed act, violators like establishment owners, patrons, and even those on the internet will be accorded stiffer penalties since prostitution is a human rights violation needing a "coordinated and sustained response from all agencies of government as well as non-government organizations that comprehensively addresses the factors that perpetuate sexual exploitation."
The act aims to protect women, men and children in prostitution by prohibiting their arrest and detention as well as mandating local government units not to issue licenses or permits for operation of leaning towards prostitution activity.
Librado said it is but pure anathema that some existing laws prove disadvantageous to women and children, given that penalties are not commensurate to the act committed and laments the fact that establishments that promote prostitution are spared from criminal liability.
Protocols in conducting raids are gender insensitive and offending, she added.
She urged colleagues to coordinate closely with law enforcement agencies and come up with proper and sensitive legal procedures concerning women and children in contact with the law.
Librado added that the council, as forerunners of advancing the rights of women and children, should teach society to put a premium on law enforcement that is sensitive to marginalized women and children. (GLP)
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