I've hit a real Low Point

This Tuesday we went to Sabang (near Puerto Galera) for scuba diving and we stayed there until today.

I really don't know what to say about the place. My mind is completely blank! I'm afraid I might just have hit the low point of my vacation here in the Philippines or maybe of my entire stay in Asia...

Why? The hotel was nice, the food was great, the scuba diving superb...

But the nightlife really makes you wanna throw up. There are about 6 girlie bars in town and we went to check them all out during the first night.

Now I consider myself very open minded and most people would agree that I'm not easily shocked by anything. My office in Zurich was located in the red light district for several years and I was used to look at prostitution merely as a demand/supply function.

But here you go into one of these places, and you're immediately surrounded by children. Most of them will tell you they're 18, 19, 20 years old, and admittedly I'm no expert at judging Asian's women's age. But I'm absolutely convinced that at least some of these girls were underage. Even then, I doubt that 18, 19, 20 is the age where a girl conciously and willingly decides for such a career move and its associated long-term risks and consequences. Especially considering that a considerable proportion of the male guests in these places are 40+, 50+.

The girls are more or less held like slaves. They have no fixed salary. They get locked into the staffhouse after work because they're not supposed to go out and enjoy themselves.

Their job is to convince guests to buy them drinks and then they'll get part of the drinks costs as comission, thereby slowly turning themselves into alcoholics. If a guest likes a girl, he pays the barfine (CHF 60.-) and the girl is his for the rest of the night. Since the girl will get half of this money, this might look like a fair deal at first. However, if a girl does not want to leave with a (30 years older) guest, she will have to pay the bar's share of the barfine herself, thereby making up for the bar's profit loss, essentially losing all her previous day's earnings. Not exactly free choice.