Low regard for women in the Phillipines persists as perpetuated by the church, home, school and mass media. Not only women's labor power but women's bodies has become a commodity. This is due to the fact that the feudal-patriarchal system is maintained together with the bourgoise thinking towards women. It is evident that under these circumstances women shall never become equal with men and will remain second class citizens.
Legal barriers are gradually being eroded to make prostitution legitimate, especially in semi-colonial countries like the Philippines. Under these circumstances women become more vulnerable to exploitation in "sex-trade" and prostitution. The number of women and children in prostitution will rise even faster when and if prostitution is loosely defined as "work" or "sex-work". At present, there are approximately 600,000 prostitutes in the Philippines. 50,000 to 60,000 of this are children forced into prostitution.
The crisis experienced by Filipinos has put women and children in situations that make them vulnerable to exploitation. Amidst intense poverty and with globalization, more and more women will fall prey and or will be forced to prostitution.
The illegal trasnport of people have been commonly used. Potential workers leave the country with fake documents. Illegal recruiters and syndicates also try to bring women out of the country through the backdoor %u2013 in Western Mindanao and Palawan %u2013 heading towards Malaysia and Indonesia aboard small motor boats or pumpboats. In some cases potential workers are smuggled out of the country aboard international sea vessels, private airplanes and even commercial planes.
Hence, the number of undocumented workers abroad continues to grow. There is an estimated 80,000 undocumented workers in South Korea aside from the 130,000 documented workers. In Japan, where Filipino women often end up as entertainers, 35,200 are illegal in addition to the documented 220,000.
