Wives' sex strike halts Filipino village violence

Women in the southern Philippines have brought peace to their strife-torn village by threatening to withhold sex if their men kept fighting, the UN refugee agency have said. The "sex strike'' in rural Dado village on the often lawless southern island of Mindanao in July helped end tensions and bring some prosperity to the 102 families living there, said UNHCR national officer Rico Salcedo.

"The area is in a town which is subject to conflict, family feuds, land disputes. The idea came personally from the women." The idea was conceived by a group of women who had set up a sewing business but found that they could not deliver their products because the village road was closed by the threat of violence.


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"There had been a string of clan conflicts. You would have a number of men who would go against another family. There were scattered incidents of shooting at each other,'' said UNHCR staffer Tom Temprosa. The sewing group's leader, Hasna Kandatu, said they warned their husbands they would be cut off from sex if they continued causing trouble.

"If you go there (to fight), you won't be able to come back. I won't accept you,'' she recalled telling her husband. Her husband, Lengs Kupong, recalled his wife telling him: "If you do bad things,you will be cut off, here,'' he said, motioning below his waist.