A woman in heels waits outside a karaoke bar long after midnight.

Inside, customers continue drinking under neon lights. Outside, some women wait to be taken on “outings” by male clients willing to pay extra beyond what the establishment earns from drinks and company. Others stand along dimly lit streets, watching passing cars slow down beside them.

For prostituted women, danger is embedded in ordinary routines: going home alone after an outing, dealing with violent buyers, or returning to cramped boarding houses with barely enough money left for food, rent, or their children.

Yet public conversations about prostitution often collapse these realities into arguments about morality, legality, or “choice.” 

Lost in these debates are the material conditions shaping women’s lives long before they enter prostitution: poverty, unstable employment, trafficking, gender inequality, and the absence of social protection systems capable of sustaining them.

Under Philippine law, prostitution remains illegal. While Republic Act No. 10158 decriminalized vagrancy in 2012, it did not legalize prostitution. Article 202 of the Revised Penal Code continued to penalize prostituted women, while anti-trafficking laws such as Republic Act No. 9208 and its amendments recognize prostitution as a form of exploitation tied to trafficking systems.

In Davao City, local policy similarly frames prostitution as violence against women. The Women Development Code of Davao City identifies prostitution as a violation of women’s dignity and criminalizes the solicitation of women for sexual purposes.

Yet despite decades of criminalization, awareness campaigns, and annual observances such as “No Prostitution Day,” prostitution continues to operate openly through bars, massage establishments, karaoke lounges, online platforms, and informal street-based networks.

For women’s organizations, this contradiction reflects the structural failure that while prostitution is publicly condemned, the economic systems sustaining it remain largely untouched.

The politics of “choice”

In recent years, global conversations surrounding prostitution have increasingly shifted toward the language of “sex work,” labor rights, and empowerment.

Supporters of the term argue that recognizing prostitution as work reduces stigma and protects women from criminalization and abuse. But women’s groups and survivor-led organizations in the Philippines argue that the language of empowerment often obscures the unequal conditions under which many women enter prostitution in the first place.

According to the Protection of Women’s Equality and Rights – Ateneo de Davao University (POWER AdDU) President Andreiane Dormitorio, prostitution cannot be understood as empowering labor when the conditions surrounding it are shaped by exploitation and unequal power.

“POWER AdDU does not believe in the concept of “sex work,” as the circumstances these women are under cannot be described as “sex,” because sex requires consent, in which in this case, women are unable to provide valid consent and we do not also label it as “work,” as we believe in equal opportunities for employment that does not compromise an individual’s autonomy and dignity,” Dormitorio said.

Women’s groups argue that contemporary discussions about prostitution are increasingly influenced by liberal feminist frameworks emerging largely from wealthier Western contexts, where prostitution is sometimes discussed primarily in terms of agency, bodily autonomy, or entrepreneurial freedom.

But Dormitorio said organizations working closely with victim-survivors like POWER AdDU often encounter women who entered prostitution after experiences of economic hardship, family violence, trafficking, or abandonment.

Despite being university-based, Dormitorio said their members undergo training with social workers and survivor advocates to better understand trafficking systems through partnerships with Talikala, Inc., a non-governmental organization for women’s rights, and Lawig Bubai, a self-help organization composed of victim-survivors of prostitution.

Systems surrounding prostitution

Since the 1990s, Davao City has remained one of Mindanao’s major hubs for the sex industry, from downtown entertainment districts to massage establishments lining major roads.

While prostitution remains illegal, local structures surrounding it continue to operate openly, blurring the line between condemnation and normalization.

Dormitorio criticized Ordinance No. 0291-17, or the Revenue Code of the City of Davao, particularly provisions tied to occupational permits imposed on women working under the umbrella of the “entertainment industry.”

“These policies reveal an uncomfortable contradiction of women being condemned publicly while industries surrounding prostitution continue to be regulated, monitored, and economically absorbed into the city,” Dormitorio said.

She added that symbolic responses remain insufficient without long-term structural intervention.

“The inconsistency of observing a ‘No Prostitution Day’ despite the practice already being illegal reflects how responses remain largely symbolic,” Dormitorio said, adding that the city should instead prioritize livelihood programs, employment opportunities, housing support, and sustainable economic assistance for vulnerable women.

For women’s organizations like Talikala, Inc., accountability should shift away from prostituted women and toward buyers, traffickers, recruiters, pimps, and establishments profiting from exploitation.

Since 1987, Talikala, Inc. has provided psychosocial services, legal assistance, skills training, and community-based support for exploited and trafficked women in Davao City.

Apart from direct intervention, the organization also works with communities, men, and local stakeholders in efforts aimed at preventing exploitation and trafficking before women become trapped within these systems.

For advocates, meaningful responses require confronting the structural conditions sustaining prostitution rather than relying solely on periodic crackdowns or symbolic campaigns.

The question confronting Davao City is not simply whether prostitution should be condemned.

The question is why, despite decades of criminalization, women continue being pushed into dangerous and exploitative conditions while the systems surrounding prostitution remain intact.

Until poverty, trafficking, gender-based violence, and economic inequality are addressed beyond rhetoric, many prostituted women will continue surviving at the edges of the city—visible enough to be consumed, regulated, and policed, but invisible when discussions turn toward protection, dignity, and justice.