On September 29, 1991, more than 5,000 sex workers marched through the red light district of the largest U.S. overseas military base in the world, yelling, “Burn them, burn them!” in protest against Filipino sovereignty activists and politicians who supported the closure of U.S. military bases in the Philippines by the country’s first female president, Cory Aquino. Local headlines declared, “Philippine girls want U.S. military men to stay.”

The protest erupted after the Senate voted to cease the lease of Filipino lands to the U.S. military for Subic Bay Naval Station. These particular sex workers were also part of a national campaign for 3 million signatures that could force a referendum to overturn the vote and to continue U.S. military presence. The campaign failed. Neocolonialism in the Philippines — United States control of the country’s internal affairs — had reached a tipping point.

The highly decorated U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Eugene Carroll once stated, “Nowhere in the United States are we able to use our military bases with less restrictions than we do in the Philippines.” Subic Bay had become “a fantasy land for the U.S. soldiers serving in the Vietnam War” and hotbed of sex trafficking over the succeeding decades. According to another U.S. official, the area was also an environmental “horror story” due to almost 100 years of unexploded ordinances, toxic “forever chemicals,” and aviation fuel seepage from the U.S. military’s underground storage tanks and dumping practices.

The social and environmental fallout of the U.S. bases helps to explain why the Philippine Senate voted 12-11 to reject a lease extension for Subic Bay, as well as five other military bases, despite facing opposition from some of the city’s sex workers. The vote is even more remarkable considering that the United States offered $203 million per year in compensation for lease renewal, while the projected costs of relocation to the United States at that time were estimated at $5 billion (Desmond Ball, 1988).

The margin was razor thin, in part, because U.S. withdrawal posed a profound economic dilemma: U.S. bases in the Philippines in 1991 employed approximately 70,000 Filipinos, which made the U.S. the second biggest employer in the country, next to the Philippine government. Thankfully, the 12 Senators were propped up by a massive anti-base movement of Filipinos including GABRIELA, a militant federation of women's organizations that soon developed into one of the most successful feminist political parties in the world. The groups chose the path of genuine self-determination and economic diversification over economic dependency, which has always been the main excuse to maintain the U.S. military-prostitution complex, especially here in Hawai‘i. The 1991 vote is considered the sum total of no less than 19 generations of anti-colonial activism by the Filipino people.

This historic blow to U.S. imperialism in the Philippines could never have happened if the Left had only listened to that particular set of sex workers who, by the way, did not represent the stance of all sex workers servicing American soldiers in the area. For example, Buklod (est. 1987) is a sex worker-led organization and drop-in center in Subic Bay that remains anti-imperialist and sex trade abolitionist to this day. The voices of these other “Philippine girls” were vindicated.

When the last U.S. ship departed Subic Bay on November 21, 1992, “thousands of trapped women and children walked free” according to long-time advocates for the rights of abused and trafficked children in Subic. Hundreds of Filipino women suffering high rates of urinary tract infection and nervous system disorders as a result of contaminated military sites were at least one step closer to justice.

Today’s Left finds itself on a similar battleground as the 1991 standoff in the Philippines, especially now that U.S. bases have reopened and the military-prostitution complex (MPC) has never been bigger. Those of us fighting to rid our communities of the MPC must stand on our compassion for all sex workers while facing intense opprobrium from sex workers who are proponents of “sex work is work” which 1) argues that any “loss of jobs” warrants the continuation of destructive industries and 2) does not speak for all sex workers or survivors of prostitution systems. While the Left confronts a wave of backlash from this lobby, a movement of abolitionist sex workers and transnational feminists from within the Left is gaining ground. What makes this development even more powerful is that the movement in the United States and Hawai‘i is led by some organizers, like myself, who were politically educated by Buklod in Subic Bay during our early days of activism…

Image credit: ANU Graphic Design and Desmond Ball

Very broadly, there are three ways pedophilia happens: 1) in-community grooming by a trusted adult known to the child (common), 2) strangers who spontaneously attack or kidnap (rare), and 3) buying sex (common - Epstein). As long as buying sex is an option, this type of pedophilia will continue. Here’s why and what we can do to move the needle while standing on social justice principles:

First, it’s important to fully grasp that the sex trade is the gateway drug to pedophilia.

Research demonstrates a direct correlation between sex buying (i.e, searching for adult “sex workers”) and an increased likelihood of men developing pedophilic tendencies and paying for sex with minors. This is what child sexual exploitation experts call “situational” pedophilia, as opposed to “preferential” pedophilia.

The delineation is not meant to play into right-wing messaging about good v.s pedophilia. Child sexual exploitation experts constructed these profiles in order to 1) contest the dominant one-size-fits-all approach to pedophile prevention and 2) provide avenues that would eventually lead to more effective intervention.

A situational pedophile is often a sex buyer who does not initially set out to have paid sex with a minor but, while actively looking for “sex workers,” realizes he can have sex with a minor without risking arrest: “situational offenders often victimize children in the context of patronizing sex workers” (McPherson, 2022). In contrast, preferential pedophiles begin with the objective of sex with a minor.

Lori McPherson, who served from 2008-2019 as the senior policy advisor to the DOJ Office of Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering, and Tracking, has outlined how sex buying leads to pedophilic experimentation in the sex market when the opportunity presents itself. Their research debunks the long-held assumption that most sex tourists who engage in sexual activity with minors are preferential pedophiles.

Situational pedophilia is prevalent in cultures where there is peer pressure to buy sex or patronize commercial sex establishments (strip clubs, brothels, drinky drinky bars, massage parlors) in the context of business, military duty, or as a male right of passage. This meta analysis of child sex tourism case studies found that situational pedophilia is more common, but preferential pedophiles are more likely to get arrested.

This suggests that sex buying, overwhelming done by men, increases a man’s chances of becoming a pedophile and exploiting children regardless of his intent.

Wait. Why would there be minors available in hostess bars, game rooms, brothels, massage parlors, model parties at mansions, bars, strip clubs and websites like OnlyFans alongside adult “sex workers?” This is normal in the sex trade because 1) minor girls are easier to recruit and control in prostitution systems than adults and 2) there are not enough “voluntary” or “consensual” adult sex workers to meet demand in any active sex market.

If a country has an active sex industry, research show an increased risk of commercial pedophilia, i.e., sexual exploitation of children, domestically and internationally. This has extremely harmful implications for the Global South because, unlike their local sex buyers, men from wealthy countries have the ability to travel internationally and compound the problem. A country has an active sex industry when the sex trade is state-sanctioned (e.g., Germany, United Kingdom, Australia) or when sex buying is technically not permitted but there is lax enforcement on the demand side because of patriarchy (e.g., United States, Japan). This is why wealthy countries with active sex industries are considered the drivers of child sex tourism in poor countries. For example, Australia, Germany, Japan, South Korea, the United Kingdom and the United States make up a disproportionate share of men arrested for buying children internationally.

Given these disturbing connections between the sex trade, sex buying and pedophilia, the American Left must commit to sex trade abolition as a bare minimum to decreasing pedophilia and protecting the Global South from sexual violence against children. If you oppose immediate sex trade abolition, you have more in common ideologically and politically with Epstein than you think.

Note on terminology

As a prostitution systems and sex trafficking policy expert, I know that terminology is both political and practical. Sex acts with a child are assault even if I may, at times, use more colloquial language for newcomers to this topic.

So far, little has been publicly discussed about Epstein’s victimization of women and girls of color or from non-Western countries, but 2014 and 2010 e-mails between Jeffrey Epstein and Daniel Siad provide some evidence that Epstein scouted for women and girls from the Philippines.

On LinkedIn, Daniel Siad (born Abad Siad) advertised himself as “Development Manager at World Fashion Channel, Paris Area, France” and “Talent Manager at abovemodels.com” but, in reality, he functioned as Epstein’s global recruiter for women and girls from outside the United States. Stan Pottinger, an attorney who represented over 20 Epstein victims, informed the U.S. Department of Justice that Jean-Luc Brunel described Siad “as a ‘scout’ or recruiter of girls and/or women for J. Epstein.” Brunel was an Epstein associate and modeling agent who committed suicide in 2022 before standing trial for rape and supplying girls to Epstein. Brunel seems to have recruited Siad into the Epstein operation in 2009 and directly contracted with Siad for scouting services. Siad sealed the dealing by writing that he could be trusted to deliver as a “Berber jew.” Siad is alleged to have run Twitter account with 5,000 followers that promoted Islamaphobia to build support for Donald Trump in Europe.

Daniel Siad to Epstein in 2014:“I just arrived to Manila visiting some agencies and scouting;” Epstein: “Nothing new?”

Typical e-mail exchange between Epstein and Daniel Siad, his global scout for female victims.

Daniel Siad in 2010 sharing that he is in Bangkok back from Manila.

Polish news site Polskie Radio analyzed the recent Epstein file release and reported that Siad scouted for young women to bring to Epstein from “rural areas of Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and the Czech Republic.” The files also show Siad searched for women in France and his country of nationality, Sweden. The emails show that Siad specifically looked for women who could “look 18” years old, even if they were actually older. In exchanges where Siad forwarded Epstein pictures or recommendations of certain women, Epstein’s first inquiry was often about their age.

Read more

At least one Filipino, Jojo Fontenella (sic), who repeatedly made trips funded by Jeffrey Epstein back home to the Philippines, is named on Epstein’s “inner circle” list, which is partially redacted. But there were two Filipinos in Epstein’s inner circle if we believe child sex trafficking victim Jennifer Araoz whose 2019 lawsuit named Jojo’s wife Rosalyn “Lynn” Fontanilla as a close Epstein co-conspirator.

Lynn, a migrant worker from the Philippines, posted these photos on Facebook touring friends and family in what appears to be Epstein’s New York residence where she worked as a maid.

Lynn, who is also Filipino and traveled to the Philippines while employed as Epstein’s housekeeper at his New York City residence, was accused of working in concert with Epstein to “directly facilitate” his sex buying and sex trafficking ring, which included supplying “dozens if not hundreds” of women and girls, three girls a day, for paid sex acts with Epstein himself (Araoz vs. Kahn, 2019). Lynn is described as leading the victim to and stocking the rape room (“massage room”) with towels and supplies. On Jojo’s part, he is described in the files as Epstein’s driver and, in one July 2017 e-mail exchange, appears to have transported at least one minor girl.

The couple may have been live-ins at Epstein’s residence at 9 East 71st Street. According to public records, another previous address of the Fontanillas’ was 301 E 66th St Apt 5p NY, NY 10065. According to Epstein’s personal chef David Richard Mullen, this matches the address where several of the “young females” from Spain and Russia lived who traveled with Epstein.

Lynn apparently died of cancer in October 2016.

The Inner Circle List Part II

E-mail from Epstein’s executive assistant Lesley Groff. Jojo remains with Epstein after Lynn’s death and is described as driving a girl to her favorite grocery store.

“Talaga big time pala ang amo mo.” (Your boss must be really big time). Photos still up on the Fontanillas’ shared Facebook account.

Epstein stacked his entire household management and housekeeping staff with Filipino nationals, often in husband-wife pairs like the Fontanillas. The primary people who saw who was coming in and out of his residences and people who cleaned up after rape, child sexual abuse, sex trafficking and sex buying appear from the files to be be almost all Filipino. Epstein regularly paid for their trips back home to the Philippines. Some emails related to this are cryptic and concerning, e.g., a strange e-mail, sender unknown, saying“X should remain in the Philippines” to which Epstein replied “monster.”

There are also documents in the files of Epstein and Filipino employees wiring money to the Philippines. Recruiting employees from this one particular country was no accident. The Philippines is the world’s largest supplier of migrant household servants because labor export programming has been an official development strategy of the government post-colonization. In 2024, Filipino remittances back home amounted to 8.7 per cent of GDP, which is the highest among the Southeast Asian economies. Overseas Filipino workers have little to no recourse abroad for workplace violence and face crushing economic pressure to support their family back home. Using Filipinos for his deeds behind closed doors created a layer of protection for Epstein similar to victimizing young girls and women from impoverished communities.

The Fontanillas with Epstein.

The Fontanillas with Prince Andrews, who is also in the Epstein files making a deal in the Philippines with Filipino oligarch “RVO” Robert “Bobby” Ongpin.

Epstein continued to use Filipinos to facilitate and cover up his crimes. He turned to the digital political disinformation industry in the Philippines to scrub the internet of his abuses, and to continue his crimes, after his 2008 including his arrest for “soliciting a minor for prostitution.”

More information to come as it’s analyzed.

These events 127 years ago generated the same popular protest, Congressional debates, and national soul searching as Palestine does today.

The reference to D-Day originates from American military historian Jason Bradley, who challenged the U.S. version of the Philippine-American war as aggressively instigated by the Filipinos. In reality, a hate crime by a trigger-happy U.S. soldier was used as pretext to ambush and slaughter over 3,000 Filipinos in a one-day window: “In the annals of warfare, few remember that more Filipinos died defending their country in the first day’s storm than Americans died storming the beaches of Normandy on D-Day” against the Nazis in WWII (Bradley, 2009).

What happened after that day included the U.S. military’s intentional and systematic destruction of food sources in the Philippines (1898-1906) and Gaza-ing of many provinces led to what is called the “secondary occupation” of Manila by the sex trade. This was caused by an explosion in demand for commercial sex by U.S. military personnel. The demand was met by the desperation of internal refugees.

During the genocide, there was a phenomenon of Filipinos selling their daughters to survive and a massive influx of Japanese and foreign prostitutes brought into the Philippines to provide sex acts to the American soldiers who were there committing these crimes against humanity. This is also where and when the United States first implemented state-sanctioned and regulated prostitution modeled after the British Empire’s and Spain’s colonial policies.

State-run prostitution was initially denied by the DoD but, once exposed by the U.S. press, caused national scandal because it conflicted with “American exceptionalism.” So, just as decolonial abolitionists are the ideological opposites of Christian moralists and yet sometimes align on issues like chattel slavery or the sex trade, the “sex work is work” movement is the strange bedfellow of Empire and the U.S. military.

This is why we should never take sex trade expansionists seriously when they say conflate us/decolonization with Puritanical moralizing. If we’re Puritans, they’re imperialists.