WHITE WEDDING WORK GIVES EX-BAR GIRLS VISION FOR NEW LIFE

THEN, OCTOBER 1997: Refugees from the Philippines' flourishing sex trade were being given the chance to make a new start through a dramatic change in livelihood.

Ex-prostitutes were being taught how to sew white wedding dresses in a novel vocational training program run by missionaries serving in one of the country's most notorious red light districts, drawing "sex tourists" from around the world.

Bridal gowns made by teenage girls and young women wanting to leave the sex-for-sale bars in Angeles City were shipped back home for sale under the Visions of Glory label by Britons Mark and Alison Weir, who led the Youth With A Mission work.

They hoped that after honing their seamstress skills on the wedding dresses, the former prostitutes would be able to support themselves when they left the YWAM center - which opened its doors to anyone who asked for help in leaving the sex trade.

"It's important for them to find some kind of trade they can depend on, and we think that it's fitting, in a way, that they are making wedding dresses, because it's symbolic of their decision to leave perversion for purity," said Mark Weir.

NOW: Photos of dresses they have made being worn by the bride on her wedding day hang on the wall of the sewing room at the YWAM center "to help give the girls a vision for what they are doing", said Alison Weir. Though most orders are still placed through a friend's shop in England, a couple have been received from other parts of the world.

It usually takes about two weeks to take an order from initial design to finished dress in the workshop, which has its own sewing machines and dressmaking dummies. Profits go back into equipment, and providing for the women during their stay at the center. Eventually the Weirs hope to see the project established as an independent small livelihood program.

None of the women who have helped with the dresses during their time at the YWAM center have yet gone on to dressmaking full-time, but the project has been an important part of their break from the past. "One has just finished her pastor's training with a local church, another is getting married, and others are in rehabilitation elsewhere," said Weir.

After they have been at the center for a few months, the former bar workers are encouraged to move to another area to continue developing a new life because "it is an addictive lifestyle, like drugs, and they need time".

Working with two local pastors, the Weirs hope to open a drop-in center in the heart of the red light district later this year. They hope that the facility would draw girls working in the area "who many times come back having been beaten up", as well as encouraging local churches to reach out to the area. "There's some fear about being there, so we hope this might make people feel a bit safer."

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