Bishop hits UN proposal to legalize prostitution

A Roman Catholic Church leader attacked on Wednesday as “morally unacceptable” a United Nation’s proposal to legalize prostitution in the Philippines to stop the spread of the deadly AIDS disease and said the government should create decent jobs for Filipino women instead.

Manila Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo said legalizing prostitution would not improve the lot of sex workers and could lead to more abuses against women and minors working as street hookers.

The government should give decent jobs to Filipino women and not drive them to prostitution by legalizing it, Pabillo said.

Department of Health records show a steady rise in the number of people afflicted by the highly infectious human immuno-deficiency virus (HIV), which totalled 10,514 last August.

About 20 percent of total cases or 2,010 were overseas workers with 25 new cases recorded last August, according to Philhealth President and Chief Executive Eduardo Banzon.

There is no known cure for HIV, which causes Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome or AIDS, but Banzon urged overseas workers to take tests if they suspected that they have been affected by the virus.

“We will help them through our outpatient AIDS treatment package, which provides a substantial allowance for annual reimbursements under our case benefit payment scheme,” Banzon said recently.

The UN said the Philippines and other Asian countries should legalize prostitution to curb the spread of the sexually transmitted disease. Legal recognition of prostitution as a profession would allow sex workers to claim medical benefits and pensions.

Pabillo, who is chairman of the National Secretariat for Social Action, Justice and Peace of the ruling Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), said that if the sex trade becomes legal it would “open the gates to predators to abuse women.”

He rejected the idea that decriminalizing the sex trade would help control the spread of AIDS because “HIV is still prevalent even in countries where prostitution is legal.”

Instead of legalizing prostitution, the government should focus on behavioral change as HIV transmission will remain high if people continue to engage in risky sexual behavior, Pabillo said.

Retired Archbishop Oscar Cruz said the government, to combat the spread of AIDS, should ban prostitution and not legalize the sex trade, which is “one of the transmission realities of AIDS.”

Cruz said the government should create laws against Internet pornography, which adversely affect people’s sexual behavior and attitudes.

In its report titled “Sex Work and the Law in Asia and the Pacific,” the UN said the Philippines and other Asian countries should decriminalize sex-related jobs in order to provide sex workers access to basic rights and to control the spread of sexually transmitted infections, especially HIV.

“The legal recognition of sex work as an occupation enables sex workers to claim benefits, to form or join unions and to access work-related banking, insurance, transport and pensions schemes,” the UN report said. -Vito Barcelo, Manila standard Today