From the Margin to the Mainstream: Reintegration into Community Life of Prostituted Women through Non-formal Education

Prostitution is an issue of human development and human rights violation because it capitalizes on the vulnerability of women. A host of political, economic, socio-historical, and cultural factors reinforces its global existence and creates a negative impact on society, especially on women. Only a few government and non-government institutions focus on implementing reintegration programs, and their intervention strategies are not well-documented. Despite this dearth of information, however, there are remarkable stories of women’s transformation and successful reintegration. Amponin and Derks consider the psychosocial, economic, physical, and mental health of the women, their religious beliefs, gender-responsiveness, and depth of awareness of trafficking as critical factors for reintegration. Both recommend a holistic, community-based reintegration for prostituted/trafficked women. This is done through training and education that often resemble nonformal education(NFE) characteristics and methodologies. Like reintegration, NFE aims at achieving an individual’s economic, cognitive, psychological, political, and spiritual empowerment. In order to highlight various models for reintegrating prostituted women into society, there is, thus, a need to document both there integration journey of NGOs and the women. This study, therefore, aimed to describe the following: 1) the reintegration initiatives provided to women during and after their involvement in prostitution; 2) the knowledge, values, and skills learned by the women; 3) nonformal education methods in transmitting reintegration; 4) empowering strategies learned by the women that facilitated their decision to leave the flesh trade. Specifically, it aimed to 1) systematize approaches to reintegration initiatives provided by selected NGOs, 2) define the type of education embedded in reintegration, and 3) identify learning outcomes as experienced by the women.