Filipinas being murdered in HK

[troubled]

I am really living up to my name with this one, sadly my girlfriend and I didn't work out though we speak on a daily basis - we love each other but are just two very incompatible people.

Having spent the first month apart back home where there is little for her to do, she has returned to the place I met her - Wanchai Hong Kong, to work as all Filipinas and Thais work there.

I have heard from several people, and now for the first time - her, that two Filipinas are missing out there and one Thai and one Filipina were found dead last month after going with the wrong customer, I am concerned for her safety even though she says she will just be there 10 days because of visa - she simply wants to pay back her sister.

I have offered to fly her out to be back with me here in Bangkok where I have just started to get my life together at 33 and have found my niche starting a videography business. She does not want to accept my offer unless I can find her a job but she's only a three quarted qualified nursing assistant.

She's too proud and very stubborn but the most decent woman I have known and my best friends were proved wrong after getting to know her.

Ok, I'll get to the point - things are even tougher out there now for these girls - many of which depend on sex work to put food on the table back home. My ex's situation isn't quite that desperate she has told me but she knows of others who are.

Why are these girls not protected by the law? The people of Hong Kong seem to look down on anyone who is from a poorer or inferior country and the police and immigration seem to do their best to make their lives hell, always checking passports, posing as potential customers and arresting girls who for the most part are just taking care of their families.

The HK police disgust me, they really do - why is there nobody pushing for the safety of these girls? Some of them save for months to get a flight only to be turned away at even their own airport.

If there was a law to legalise though control it so it didn't get out of hand, then maybe the scumbags that think a prostitutes life is worth nothing could end up in jail instead of the unfortunate girls who are helping their own and harming nobody except themselves.

It is 1:30 am here in Bangkok, before I came to this internet cafe I rang her and she sounded ok but cold and looking for her friends, a bit concerned because she didn't have a key to the shared apartment where she stays with her 'colleagues'.

The phone cut off, I will not sleep until I know it was because her battery ran out and she got home ok. She had been trying to call her friends to get the key, if anything happens to her I will never forgive myself or the HK authorities.

Finally, let me finish by saying this girl is not playing any heart strings, emotionally blackmailing me or any other such nonsense and over the past year she has proved wrong everybody who ever doubted her due to her former and now renewed status.

Ok, so what can we do about this?

[ginapeterb]

Not quite sure what you are looking for someone to say, you and your girl havent worked out, and she has gone back on the game has she ? am I reading you right ?

Sadly, Hong Kong is not a great place for the girls to work, either they end up as Domestic helpers with Chinese business people, or they end up on the game in Wanchai, the last time Gina and I were in Hong Kong, we saw the Filipino domestic helper community on Sunday all sitting together down near Star Ferry having lunch, they have nowhere to go on Sunday, its nice to see them all meet up and chat with each other, they eat snacks and have drinks and chat.

Its the only outlet for them, its a sad lonely life for many of them, and a dangerous one for others, Fiipinas end up dead in Hong Kong all the time, and in Kuwait, UAE, Lebanon, Singapore, only recently in Singapore, a Filipina was thrown from a high rise block of flats, the Police are investigating, a recent report I read, said that 2 Singaporean citizens were in jaol respectively for 2 weeks each for beating their Filipino domestic helper, they took it in turn to be in Jaol.

These things are common, Filipinas working in foreign countries, especially Japayuki's those in the sex trade are vulnerable to being murdered, due to the lifestyle they lead.

800,000 women and young girls are trafficked each year around the world, but many of them are trafficked into Cambodia for the sex trade, Hong Kong is just a small part of it.

[KeithD]

Anyone in the 'sex' trade is vunerable to crime....we had a good bunch of prostitutes slaughtered in the UK a few months back.

[troubled]

I just find it very upsetting that so many Filipinas who have lived a life of nothing but struggle and poverty who have mothers and families who love them dearly, meet their end at the hands of the type of evil who will commit the most humiliating a filthy acts of rape and abuse on them then kill them as if they were less than a dog.

Their families back home must go through unimaginable grief as not all will realize what their sisters/daughters have been doing to put food on the table and I dobt they will have the money for the body to be flown home for burial.

This subject is of course closer to home because of my relationship with a woman who I hope is being as careful as she says and only associating with known customers.

Does the law regard a working girl as unimportant? Please tell me the rules of murder and abuse apply to these girls as they would anywhere else.

I think I now understand why such faith in God, what would they do without that - there would be no comfort.

Is there no support group for working girls/Filipinas abroard? I heard there was but because of the taboo and culture they are afraid to come forward - so once again the religion that created the stigma of their profession is contributing to their deadly fate.

It is so very very sad what goes on, I sometimes despair of humanity.

[aromulus]

You will find that prostitutes are not the only ones falling victim to pervs and murderers.

It is a fact of life that scum like that exists, not only in HK but in every country in the world.

A couple of British girls were killed in Japan not so long ago, one found in a cave by the sea, covered in cement, the other in a flat in a bathtub full of sand.
They were not prostitutes as far as the news reported at the time.
Yes, a drop in centre for help and counseling would go a long way in that neck of the woods. Unfortunately the girls will not attend, not because of the "stigma", but the fears of missing tricks.
If prostitution was regulated like it is in Holland and some other parts of the world, with proper brothels and access to free medical help, and off the streets, the girls would be much safer.
But as long there are men, trawling for sex, there always be danger. Not just to working girls.
Just try not to worry too much, sounds like she knows what she is doing, and in my opinion she ain't too interested in a relationship of any sort with all that money rolling in...
Good luck.

[KeithD]

More women get killed in domestic violence than the sex trade.

[troubled]

^/^^ I guess so... Horrid world isn't it, those who are happy are only able to be because they either ignore the bad things, are not aware of them or believe bullshit.