In 2005, writes Joe Takeda, an associate professor at the School of Sociology and Social Work of Kwansei Gakuin University in Japan, the Japanese government changed its immigration law and enforced strict measures on the issuing of Entertainer Visas.
I doubt very much if Japan did this out of any genuine concern for the welfare of the women entertainers. Rather, as Takeda points out, the change in policy was a result of the Japanese government?s desire ?to downgrade its watch-list status in the Human Trafficking Report issued by the US in 2004.? In the last three decades, Takeda notes, ?approximately 500,000 Filipino entertainers, an overwhelming majority of whom are women, have been deployed to Japan.?
The law, as worded before then, allowed the entry of foreign entertainers for ?cultural exchange,? a loophole exploited by pimps, club owners, recruiters and even gang leaders in both Japan and in sending countries to lure young women (and some men) to Japan to work as dancers, waitresses and barely disguised prostitutes. Filipinas were among the most numerous migrant entertainers, and many came home with stories of abuse, exploitation and violence from their pimps and clients, and abandonment by their Japanese boyfriends or husbands.
The new law made use of the Entertainer Visa much harder, so much so that, as cited by Takeda, while 82,741 Filipino women entered Japan as entertainers in 2004, only 47,765 managed to enter the country in 2005, and the number was down to 8,607 in 2006.
I remember a former recruiter bemoaning to me around that time that for all intents and purposes ?the Japan market was dead.? The recruitment industry even lobbied with the Department of Foreign Affairs to petition Japan to ?review? the new law, saying it would leave hundreds of women unemployed. That was true enough, but I found it quite embarrassing that the government would so vigorously protest a policy that would result in saving young women from sexual exploitation.
We can be fairly sure, though, that after ?losing? Japan as a destination, sex traffickers have found other customers elsewhere.
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BUT this is not about trafficking itself. Rather, this column is about the efforts of a group of former entertainers to organize, assess their situation, and forge new visions and directions, with themselves as primary actors and decision-makers.
?Although the law was changed in 2005 and saved thousands of young Filipino women from going through harsh experiences in Japan,? writes Takeda, ?the Japanese government has not yet provided any support for distressed and traumatized Filipino women returning to the Philippines from Japan.? And while the Philippine government provided largely lip-service to caring for the returning women (they did provide transport and burial assistance for the women who died in Japan), it has been left to a number of non-government organizations to provide the women counseling, advice, livelihood and help in dealing with the Japanese government with regard to their Japanese partners and their half-Japanese children.
One such group is the Batis Center for Women, founded in 1989, which in 1996 realized that the women needed to form their own ?self-help? group and helped put up Batis AWARE in 1996. Batis Center and Batis AWARE were among the groups I approached for help in 2002 when I was doing research for a book on trafficking. It was through them that I got to meet some survivors of dangerous sojourns through the world of trafficking.
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TEN years after its founding, the officers of Batis AWARE, which has since grown into an independent organization, felt they needed to go through an exercise that would allow them to, in the words of Gina Arenas-Yap of the Asian Social Institute, ?analyze their present situation, reflect upon their strengths, identify various areas for improvement and plan their next activities.?
Previously, members of Batis AWARE took part in peer counseling sessions, helping each other ?talk? their way through their trauma and stored nightmares. They also helped each other find their missing or hard-to-contact Japanese partners and seek greater support for the upbringing of their children. The members also embarked on ?advocacy? campaigns, primarily through a theater group that roamed the country, presenting dramas on the plight of migrant women based on their own experiences.
The group also tried income-generating projects, such as a ?Sewing Shop? that produces quilts and other products with the support of local and Japanese partners; a candle shop that provided votive candles for Baclaran Church but which has since been discontinued; and at present a canteen and catering business, banking on the experiences of members.
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IT was Takeda who presided over what?s called the Participatory Learning and Action (PLA) process, involving the women themselves in looking back and assessing the situation of their organization. Various tools?a resource map, a timeline, a cause-and-effect diagram, to name a few?were used to assess the situation. The process culminated in the use of the Participatory Appreciative Planning Approach (PAPA) to set time-bound targets for themselves, plan self-sustaining activities to reach their goals, and create an action plan, including naming the persons in charge of every phase of the projects.
Thus, the officers of Batis AWARE?Victoria Lloren, Alona Tagami, Carmela Anteza and Marina Arcega?made sure that in celebrating their first decade, they would not only look back and re-trace their history, but also look forward with concrete plans and a set of priorities at least for the decade to follow.
