FIGHT AGAINST SEXUAL EXPLOITATION
Our partner organization, Talikala was founded in 1986 by former prostitutes, among many others. In the local language, Talikala means „chain” or „bondage”: the organization is committed to helping victimized girls and women in Davao City break free from the chains of exploitation and oppression. With a team of trained social workers, Talikala directly takes care of prostitutes, abused women and girls who have gotten into human trafficking.
They also organize community groups, provide information and education, network and lobby. Talikala fights for its vision of „gender-equitable relations between women and men who enjoy equal rights and full participation in the development of their society”.[SC1] AWO International’s partnership with Talikala aims to enable the target communities to fight against sexual exploitation on their own in the long term.
Talikala has also been using a new relatively new approach for some time now to increasingly involve men in its project work to combat sexual exploitation from all sides – and has been very successful in doing so. When Talikala brought together a group of situs idn poker online men in the Lapu Lapu project community for a unique discussion, it opened the eyes of many participants. „After the first meeting we asked for another one and immediately decided where and when it would take place,” recalls 53-year-old Bibing, who is himself a father and husband.
At once intimate and provocative in nature, subtle and bold in gesture, the work is considered to be a shining example of performance art and, at that time, it pushed the boundaries of art by making the audience integral to the work, both in terms of those viewing the art and those performing the discomfiting act of cutting clothing off her body. Some viewers, especially the first few, made small snips revealing minimal skin in more acceptable parts of the body such as her wrists or forearms, while others made more drastic moves such as cutting her bra str aps, prompting the artist to change her meditative pose and hold her bra up to prevent it from falling off.
These men have since formed a registered volunteer group and are now called ‘Men in Valuable Partnerships with Women and Children’ (MVPWC). With the support of our project, they actively fight for the protection of women in Davao City, participate in campaigns to raise awareness, and offer informal counselling. „Now we know the laws and guidelines and understand that human rights are universal. When we hear or see that something bad is happening in a household, we immediately draw the attention of the Barangay Captain so that he can intervene according to the guidelines – we talk to the perpetrators, give them advice or man-to-man talks under the guidance of the social workers of Talikala,” reports Bibing.
Ono was born in Japan in 1933, but in the wake of World War II, her family fled to the US in 1952, where she attended Sarah Lawrence University and in 1961 she joined the Fluxus art movement. Founded by Lithuanian American artist George Maciunas in 1960 in New York, this movement was inspired by the earlier Dada art movement and was rooted in experimentation. Fluxus artists often staged art performances which challenged conventional notions of art—such as painting, sculpture—and instead highlighted the actions of the human body on the artwork. They also pushed to lower the barriers between art and real life by bringing art beyond galleries and museums.
