Hoping for better living conditions, more and more families from the Philippines' countryside move to the urban area of Manila. But real life soon catches up with them: They do not find any work, have no place to stay. Entire families must live in the streets. To ensure their survival, children have to contribute to their family's income. To some parents, forcing their children into prostitution is the last resort.
Life in the streets...
Poverty and physical or sexual abuse are the main reasons for children to run away from home, hoping for a better life in the streets. But this life is dangerous: It does not take long until the girls and boys get caught in the vicious circle of violence and prostitution. Not attending school, their chances of finding a way back into settled life are few.
"Did I not give each of you his own torch,..."
"...The cause of the backwardness of Asia lies in the fact that there the women are ignorant, are slaves, While Europe and America are powerful because there the women are free and well educated and endowed with lucid intellect and strong will. We know that you lack instructive books; we know that nothing is added to your intellect, day by day, save that which is intended to dim its natural brightness; all this we know, hence our desire to bring you the light that illuminates your equals here in Europe. If that which I tell you does not provoke your anger, and if you will pay a little attention to it then, however dense the mist may that befogs our people, I will make the utmost efforts to have it dissipated by the bright rays of sun, which will light, though they may be dimmed.We shall not feel any fatigue if you help us: God, too, will help to scatter the mist, because he is the God of truth; He will restore to its pristine condition the fame of the Filipina in whom we now miss only a criterion of her own, because good qualities she has enough and to spare.
- To the Young Women of Malolos, February 22, 1889
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