Exploring the Lives of Prostituted Women in Davao City

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According to Abraham Maslow, the culture of sex work can be different for everyone and if a sex worker has the correct support network within the industry and are practicing self-care then other needs mentioned in Maslow's Hierarchy can be met as well. Job security can result in fulfilling safety needs and projects as the Sex Workers Outreach Project provide information and tips on ways to ensure psychological safety as well. Due to stigma the feeling of belonging may be need that is unreachable by some who have entered the sex worker industry and this could become a motivator for exiting. However relationships formed with co-workers in parts of the industry such as brothels and or massage parlors may fulfill these needs for some sex workers.

Each level of Maslow's Hierarchy of needs can fulfill or become a motivator for exiting the sex work industry depending on the individual and their personal experience and journey of becoming a sex worker (Maslow, 1954).

The researcher’s intention to conduct this study is to be able to understand the social and personal issue of prostitution and help in promoting laws that would protect the women involved. It is also to spread awareness that though they are prostitutes respect should still be accorded to them and they can find better work if given proper training and education

Methods

Research Design

The researchers will use the Qualitative Research Design specifically the Phenomenological Analysis. In a phenomenological study, the researchers will use a combination of methods, such as conducting interviews, reading documents, watching videos, or visiting places and events, to understand the meaning participants place on whatever’s being examined. The researchers will rely on the participants’ own perspectives to provide insight into their lives and motivations (Sauro, 2015). In this study, the phenomenon that the researchers aim to know is the motivation/s of commercial sex workers engaging in sexual activity as type of work. The researchers will use in-depth interview in gathering data from the commercial sex workers.

Research Participants

The researchers will use Non-Probability Sampling specifically Purposive or Judgmental sampling among the female commercial sex workers. In this study, the respondents are 5 female commercial sex workers in Davao City who are at least 3 years in the job and who are 18 years old above.

Research Instrument

To assist the researchers in gathering data, they will conduct interviews, audio/video recording, note taking and observations during their interactions with the respondents.

Research Procedure

The researchers will create interview questions from the statement of the problem including probing questions. After the formulation of probing questions the researchers will translate the statement of the problem including the probing questions into Visayan language. After the translation, the researchers will find an expert person to validate the questions being translated. After the Visayan questions was translated and validated, the questions will be translated again into English language by an expert English professor. After it was translated into English it will be validated by the researchers’ adviser. After all the questions were translated and validated, the researchers will immediately conduct their interview with the commercial sex workers. The 2 researchers will accommodate 3 respondents and the other researcher will accommodate 4 respondents during interview.

The interview process is a combination of a structured (formal) and unstructured (informal) interview. The goal of the informal interview during the early stages of meeting with the respondents is to establish rapport with the respondents and eventually build a warm, trusting relationship. This will be aided by an intake interview form. It will allow the respondents to become more comfortable and more open in participating in the research and answering other questions that are part of the formal interview. A set of predefined questions will be used during the formal interview which ensures that enough data can be gathered and analyzed.

Data Analysis

In the analysis of data, the researchers will look into the lives and motivation/s of the female commercial sex workers in doing or engaging in such kind of activity. Based on their interview responses, the researchers will be able to identify their motivations.

The steps of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis that the researchers will perform are as follows:

Data Transcription. This consists of a verbatim (semantic level of transcription) document of the interview that transpired between the researchers and the respondents based on the audio/video recording, together with personal notes of the researchers during the interview and during observations (Smith & Osborn, 2007). This allowed the researchers to review and organize their data into one form and have a concrete foundation for conceptualization. Each respondent’s responses will be transcribed individually.

Open Coding (Indexing). This process involved labeling all of the relevant words, phrases and sections on the data (Lofgren, 2013). The relevance of data was based on the research’s conceptual framework, which are the motivation of the commercial sex worker/s and their satisfaction which lead them to stay and continue to engage in that type of activity. This step was more analytical as the responses was labeled based on the themes that will arise.

Clustering Themes. The emergent themes was listed on a separate sheet of paper. This was repeated for all of the responses of the respondents individually (Smith, 2007).

Connecting Themes. With the help of list of clustered themes, the researchers looked for connections or similarities across all the respondents’ responses (Smith, 2007) while still being guided with the variables of the research.

Table with themes of each research questions. The researchers will formulate an outlined form of the emergent themes (Biggerstaff & Thompson, 2008) categorized into the motivation and satisfaction of the commercial sex workers. This will serve as the Master table of themes for the whole group (of respondents). In each table of the themes, the researchers will be having a frequency and it will be label as general, typical and rare. General (all or all but one case) consist of 9 to 10 similar responses, typical ( more than half

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