Task Force Adams Apple chair wants stiffer penalty vs freelance sex workers
Task Force Adams Apple chair Ms. Mayet Geremias urged the city government to impose stiffer penalty against freelance sex workers.
This after the task force rounded up 17 freelancers in a recent operation conducted on the array of KTV bars located along the coastal areas in Arevalo district.
Rembelle Piopena, inspector of Task Force Adams Apple, said though not even one out of total 17 freelancers was afflicted by the sexually transmitted disease (STD), two of the women were found to be positive of 'push cells' when subjected to pap smear at the Social Hygiene Clinic in Tanza, city proper here.
The task force said these freelancers are the same women earlier apprehended during the recent crackdown they have conducted in various nightspots and videoke bars in metro Iloilo for working without permits.
Geremias wrote a formal letter to city mayor Jerry P. Trenas, proposing to include freelancers and gays in City Ordinance 330 particularly Section 6 that regulate registered sex workers.
She said freelance sex workers and gays are not covered by the provisions of said city ordinance, thus they can not be prosecuted or impose a fine of P500 as penalty for working without permit, apart from detention for 12 hours and compliance for smear examination after their release with no appropriate charges filed against them for committing said offense.
According to Geremias, the inclusion of these freelancers in said city ordinance will serve as a deterrence for future violation that would also be beneficial to this highly urbanized city to at least minimize if not totally eradicate sexually transmitted diseases particularly the dreaded AIDS.
(PNA)