Higher fines for 'illegal' sex workers sought
Task Force Adams Apple has asked the Sangguniang Panlungsod to amend City Ordinance 330 series of 1992 to pave way to the imposition of stiffer penalties against registered sex workers and freelance sex workers caught violating the said ordinance.
Task Force Adams Apple officer-in-charge Marietta Geremias said they are asking that the penalty for violation of City Ordinance 330 particularly on those sex workers without permit be increased to P500.
Geremias also said the ordinance should likewise provide penalties for freelance sex workers who do not undergo weekly regular smearing.
She also asked that they be authorized, besides the City Health Office, to check whether registered sex workers and freelance sex workers have undergone their weekly regular smearing.
Ordinance 330 series of 1992 is an ordinance prohibiting and penalizing any person, dancer or performer of obscene and indecent shows or exhibitions, and the maintainer, owner or manager of any business establishing allowing such obscene and indecent show or exhibition and providing requisites for such dancers or performers employed in nightclubs, beerhouses, inns and other similar places and for other purposes.
In her letter addressed to Vice Mayor Jed Mabilog, Geremias said the task force has been implementing Section 5 and 6 of the ordinance which contains the provision in working without health and work permits and Section 9 of the same ordinance which details on the indecent exhibition/obscene shows.
The same letter was also furnished to Councilor Ely Estante with whom the task force also asked help in their plan to amend the city ordinance which governs on the sex workers in the city. The letter is dated August 16, 2007.
Geremias said the task force's functions and powers do not only cover the registered sex workers working in night clubs, massage parlors and KTV bars but also with the freelance sex workers. The freelance workers, who often loiter in the streets and other suspected red houses, are considered high risk group to sexually transmitted infections compared to registered sex workers.
She lamented that the only case they can file against the freelance sex workers is vagrancy since there is no existing city ordinance that is applicable to them. There is also no provision in the ordinance that requires both the registered sex workers and the freelance sex workers to undergo weekly regular smearing.
The apprehended violators are usually brought to the police precincts for temporary custody. They undergo smearing test the following day either in Iloilo City Social Hygiene or Process Foundation Panay Inc, said Geremias.