Life Onboard LAST UPDATE  January 31, 2010
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January 3, 2010 Carmelita Nuqui and DAWN – The false promise of a better life
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Peace Boat International Coordinator Meri Joyce welcomes Mel back home to the Philippines after a short, but busy journey.
Thousands of Filipina women have since the 1970s gone to Japan with the intention of working as performers, only to be forced to cater to men at the country’s infamous hostess bars. Upon arriving in Japan their new employers require them to turn over their passports, demand they work long hours – for less pay than promised – and essentially keep the women as prisoners when not on the job.

“Even if you need money you should still be able to be treated like a human being,” says Carmelita Nuqui, the executive director of Development Action for Women Network (DAWN), in Manila, and a regular Peace Boat guest educator. Mel – as she’s known onboard – co-founded DAWN in 1996 after witnessing the treatment of Filipina women working as overseas performing artists (OPA).

She recalls a visit to Nagasaki in 1990, while she was representing a labour union, and a night out at a Filipino bar. She was excited to see entertainers from her homeland, but had no real knowledge of the seedier side of such establishments – also called snack bars. It was shocking, she says, to watch a folk dance turn into a strip tease for the Japanese clients.

Japan is the top destination for OPAs and by 2004 its government was issuing approximately 80,000 entertainer visas a year under an agreement with the Philippines. “You can imagine the problems 80,000 women have,” she says.
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Participants interested in DAWN’s work met with Mel to discuss ways they could assist her during her time onboard.
The women often come back with no money at all: Not only do they wind up earning less than expected, many have to pay back the recruiters who organised their visas and trained them for dance shows they never perform.

“You cling to the dagger because you really have no choice,” says Mel. The women make a huge sacrifice, in hopes of earning more money than they can in the Philippines, where 70 per cent of the population is poor.

“I’ve lived in Manila all of my life and I’ve always wondered why we can’t rise above this problem,” says Jacquelyn Sy, a Peace Boat volunteer from the Philippines. Like Mel, she blames corrupt administrations for taking advantage of the poor.

The entertainment visa was an arrangement between the Philippines and Japan to continue the Filipina sex trade, after the public demanded an end to Japanese sex tours to the country. Both governments, Mel says, had full knowledge of the awful treatment, the women deal with. Thanks to much lobbying from organisations such as DAWN, Japan in the last five years has decreased the number of visas issued: Last year, she says, Japan granted only 2,000 permits.

That’s a huge step, but it certainly hasn’t solved the problem. The Filipino government is still trying to traffic women. “When Japan started to change its policies,” she says, “the Philippines government increased the number of entertainers being sent to Korea.”
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Mel brought many tie-dyed and woven products onboard for participants looking to buy ethical, fair trade souvenirs for family and friends.
In a lecture for Peace Boat participants, Mel told the audience the Philippines needs to support its people, not exploit them for its own gains. Training in sustainable trades, she says, is the key to preventing women from relying on overseas work.

At DAWN, returnees – whom the government’s Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSDW) refers to the NGO – have the opportunity to take part in alternative livelihood training through its Sikhay self-empowerment programme. For the last 14 years, DAWN has trained women in textile work such as sewing, weaving and tie-dyeing, and recently began a cosmetology course: At the moment, 70 women are working with DAWN.

“We chose this training because this training is very therapeutic,” she says, “It’s like … putting things together (and) picking up the pieces. It serves both purposes, therapy and earning income for their children.”

To read about Peace Boat participants’ visit to DAWN and cultural exchange with Japanese-Filipino children, click here: www.peaceboat.org/english/voyg/68/poc/mani/index.html

For more information about DAWN, visit www.dawnphil.org.