Filipina who worked in Japan says not all entertainers were victims of trafficking

MANILA: A Filipina who worked in Japan as an entertainer in the early 2000s has pushed back against claims that women on entertainer visas were merely hostesses, saying she was genuinely hired to sing and dance and earned significantly more than she did in the Philippines.

Her comment against the narrative that Filipinas were forced into becoming hostesses back then came after Philippines Raw posted on their instagram account, @philippines.raw, that in 2004, when over 82,000 Filipinas entered Japan, many of them became victims of trafficking and were found by Japanese authorities, not singing or dancing, but working as hostesses—sitting with Japanese men, serving them drinks, “enduring hands they never agreed to”.

Screengrab from Philippine Raw’s Istagram post.

According to her, that job was her first job overseas. 

“I was one of the entertainers back 2003-2006, but I do sing and dance. Working in the Philippines back then, I only earned PHP 5,000 per month, but in Japan, I earned over PHP 30,000 monthly plus tips more than 4x,” she said.

While she added that there was “nothing wrong” with her experience, stories from other Filipinas suggest otherwise.

In a document from the gender equality forum Kitakyushu Forum on Asian Women (KFAW), some Filipinas who worked in Japan as entertainers due to poverty and lack of economic opportunity in the Philippines back then were forced to work wearing sexy clothes, go on afternoon dates with their customers, and were made to clean the clubs they worked at, even when they entered the country as professional singers.

Due to cases like this, in 2005, the Japanese government started requiring all foreign entertainers to have two years of formal education in the performing arts and two years of work experience outside Japan, in hopes of curbing human trafficking in the country, as studies found many women in the entertainment industry ended up in prostitution.

Although it was met with protests from Filipino entertainers, who were looking for opportunities that brought higher earnings, according to Gulf News.

A year later, PhilStar reported that Japanese bars and entertainment venues began shutting down amid tighter policies, which triggered a scarcity of entertainers, including Filipinos.

The same strict policies, however, also led to Filipinas marrying Japanese men. At the time, the number of OPAs declined even as the number of Filipino entertainers in Japan increased. This was because Filipinas who married Japanese men started working in nightclubs in Japan, as reported by GMA News Online.

To this day, different stories emerge from Filipinas who went there for better opportunities. As for the realities they faced, some may have been fortunate, but some not as much. /TISG

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