(IPS) feature

With his baseball cap turned backwards, hair dyed blond, and right ear pierced, Edwin (not his real name) looks like a typical teenager hanging out in one of the metropolis' many malls.

It is 5pm. Edwin takes the escalator to the third floor of a busy mall in the Philippine capital, a shopping centre where there are many more boys dressed like him, and young girls garbed in the latest fashion. They greet each other in codes - a slight nod, a wink of the eye, a tilting of one's cap - that would go largely unnoticed among passersby.

The girls congregate either in the nearby cafe and karaoke TV bar, while the boys prefer to stand by the steel railings around the mall, a few of them puffing cigarettes.

The scene appears quite harmless, until Edwin explains what is wrong with this picture. There are middle-aged men in the cafe and bar, and soon they are joined by the young girls for a beer or two. Half an hour later, they leave in pairs.

The boys, meantime, are either busy casing the scene with their eyes or sending text messages on their cell phones. "They are now negotiating with someone who wants to pick them up," Edwin explains. "It is much easier to hide a transaction now."

Sex for cash

These boys who offer sex in exchange for cash or material things are called the ' bakal (steel) boys', mainly because they lean against the steel railings of malls, waiting to be picked up. Their customers, including homosexual men, are called 'sponsors'.

A man stands near one tall boy wearing a ski cap. That is the pimp talking to one of his wards, Edwin points out.

He warns about making eye contact with anybody because that's how it all begins. Some have been unwittingly introduced to the trade by a stare, then an offer that some cannot refuse. "Sometimes they will offer to buy you a cell phone," he says.

Edwin knows the ins and outs of the thriving sex industry in the malls. He was introduced to it at the age of 16 by a cousin of the same age. "He was like my hero. Wherever he went, I went. So when he asked me to hang outwith him in the mall, I did," Edwin says.

It was fun at first because his cousin and the teens around him always had money to splurge on food and the latest fashion. He was repelled, he says, when he found out how they acquired the fast cash.

Violent family

But he stayed with them because they filled a void in his life. He came from a violent family - his mother beat his sister's hands with a hammer in a fit of rage when she found out she had been stealing from her purse. His father would beat him with the buckle of a belt for the slightest infraction.

His parents eventually split up and he was taken to his grandmother. At seven, he was sexually abused by two male neighbours.

Edwin says that although he was never a sex worker himself, his cousin's gang accepted him as one of them. Once, he said, they induced him to try three sticks of marijuana, but he got so wild they never asked him to join them again.

Drugs, he said, are a part of the business. In their sober moments, he says, some talk about saving up for the future, which almost always, does not happen. Some get hooked on drugs, the others become young parents and see prostitution as their only meal ticket.

Youth mentors

After a year of hanging out, Edwin decided that he wanted out. Today, he is one of eight youth mentors trained by Lunduyan, an NGO working on the advocacy of children's rights.

His job, among others, is to help convince teenagers that there is another path they can take, or if they are adamant about staying on, that they should at least be protected from STDs, and HIV. He reminds them that any time they need help, Lunduyan's doors are wide open.

A made-up girl in denim skirt and tight-fitting blouse stops by to say hello to Edwin. When she leaves, Edwin says she is only 14, and last week, he had helped her get treatment for STD (sexually transmitted disease). "I told her this was the signal for her to leave, but she just laughed," he says.

"She likes it here because she has friends who make her forget herproblems. There's no peace in her home, her parents are always fighting," he adds.

The youth mentor project had its roots in the 1980s, when the Centre for the Promotion, Advocacy and Protection of the Rights of the Child (Children's Lab) realised the need to provide an "alternative safe haven" for street children and young sex workers.

Vulnerable

"Child sex workers are the most vulnerable to HIV/Aids" and other abuses, said Irene Fonacier-Fellizar, executive director of Lunduyan. The figure is staggering: of 1.5 million street children, 60,000 are prostituted, according to 1996 statistics of the Philippine Resource Network.

Sex trade in the malls was already around in the 1980s but was never given a priority because there were more to be found in the streets, according to Ramil Esguerra, adminstrative officer of Lunduyan.

But when the strip joints of Manila were shut down, sex workers spread out, with the young ones turning to the malls. Just about any mall in the metropolis has become a meeting place, says Fonacier. "You've seen one place, you've seen all."

The young mentors, like Edwin, were a big help in terms of identifying how the intervention should be structured, says Fonacier. "They defined for us what a social worker should be and they remind us how far away we are from them and their problems."

Squatter communities

For instance, she says, they suggested that the work should begin in nearby squatter communities since most of those who hang out in the malls live there.

With the help of officials and parents in the barangay (the smallest local government unit), Lunduyan now goes into communities. By using various art forms, including street theatre, they discuss issues like teenage pregnancy, sexual abuse and prostitution.

A major factor pushing children to the malls and the streets is their feeling of "not being appropriately listened to", says Fonacier. "They keep saying, you can talk to us, but in ways that we can understand. Children need to know what's at stake for them."

Many run away because of violence and abuse at home. Of 10,749 child victims served by the Department of Social Welfare and Development in 2000, 5,047 or 47 percent were sexually abused.

Ramil adds that the consumerist culture, glorified in the malls and in the media, also pushes some teenagers to turn to prostitution to earn a quick buck. "Before, the list of wants among teenagers was a Swatch watch, now it's a cell phone."

Child sex trade

The child sex trade involves children as young as 11, and cuts across social strata, says Alan Ogues, Lunduyan project manager. He and Fonacier say they expect the figures to go up because of hard times. "This will mean young sex workers, lesser pay and more dangerous sex," Fonacier says. Some have been known to offer sex in exchange for just a meal.

Youth involvement in children's rights is also the lynchpin of Aralang Handog para sa Mga Bata , (Lessons for Children), a pilot project that extends alternative education to five to eight-year-old indigent children.

Under this programme run by ECPAT Philippines, twice a week or a total of six hours, youth volunteers become teachers to children who are ready for school but are not in them because of poverty.

Here, they are taught not the three Rs, but the four Rs: Reading, (W)Riting, A(Rithmetic) - and Rights.

Volunteer teachers

Volunteers aged 16 to 21 develop the teaching modules themselves for the project, which ran from July to December.

Margaret de Paz, 16, says being with children has taught her "to appreciate even small things in life". Margaret, who dreams of becoming a teacher, says she cannot forget an incident where she saw a "student" saying goodbye to her while inside a pushcart, saying, "This is our home, teacher".

Meanwhile, Fonacier says Lunduyan is now training junior mentors, ages 9 to 13, who want to be part of child rights work. "At their age they want to be a part of something, it adds to their self-worth. They treasure the experience of being in the middle of their community, talking about things that matter to them."