Violence is part of the business. Belen has been beaten up for insisting on a customer s use of a condom. Burning cigarettes have been pressed against her skin. She has been forced to perform sexual acts that were repugnant to her. Once, a customer got her very drunk and raped her.
Verbal abuse is commonplace.
Not a few women she knew ended up being killed by their customers. Belen thinks the problem cannot be reduced to moral stigma, the argument of those who are proposing to normalise prostitution. It is the stigma that the proponents of legalisation seek to erase by asserting the sex workers rights. The women in Lawig Bubai cannot see the logic in that. It will be there as long as men continue to buy women.