A Light That Never Goes Out

Resistance, Bigotry, Long-held Conventions– there are many obstacles that our three personalities face in their personal and professional lives. But they’re not just working for themselves: They’re working for women, for sex workers, for LGBTQ+ people in Singapore – to push for change and to make things better for all

- Hillary Kang

Vanessa Ho WANTS TO USE HER ANGER FOR GOOD

In the 10 years that Vanessa Ho has been with Project X – Singapore's only non-profit that assists the country's sex workers – she has seen first-hand how poorly they are treated, and how little aid, and sympathy, is extended to them.

There are the women who are locked up in their apartments by employers in the daytime, and who are released only to perform their hostess duties come evening. Women who come to Singapore believing they are here to be waitresses, and who end up being coerced into sex work through intimidation and peer pressure. And there are those who fall prey to abuse and exploitation – simply because they have no one else to turn to in a foreign land.

Whenever I heard those sorts of stories from sex workers, I'd be furious, says Ho. I'd be jumping up and down. I'd fly into these rages. And it was very easy for people to dismiss me because of that anger – I got a lot of comments like: 'She's just an angry woman.' Or, 'she's not rational.' Are people telling me my anger isn't valid? That made me even angrier.

These days, Ho understands that her passion for advocacy is better channeled through healthier means: I've gone to therapy, I've done self-help reading. I mean, that sort of anger burns yourself, too.