A sex strike on Mindanao Island in the Philippines put an end to fighting between villages that dated back to the early 1970s, a recently released UN Refugee Agency report has revealed.

Hasna Kandatu tells UN representatives about the Mindanao Island sex strike (Picture: YouTube)

The fed-up female members of two warring villages came up with the idea of a sex strike as an ultimatum to stop their husbands tearing each other apart.

Approximately 100,000 people were displaced by the Mindanao Island unrest in 2008, with a separatist rebellion having kicked off in the 70s.

The UN provided resources to help settle the displaced, but fights still flared up when residents of one village – Dado – had to pass through two others on their way to a market in the region.’If our husbands wanted to fight, we’d tell them not to,’ said Hasna Kandatu, who lives in Dado. ‘If they still went, we’d say okay, it’s up to you. But you will not be accepted at home.’




Her husband, Lengs Kupong, revealed that his concern about what he’d be missing out at home outweighed his fear of the men from neighbouring villages.

As a consequence, he used his position as a key village leader to implore his fellow males to stop the conflict: ‘She says to me if you do bad things then we will be separated.’

Since the women’s action, the villagers appear to be at peace and the main road in the area has re-opened – though Kupong seems keen to hedge his bets, quipping: ‘Two! I want two wives!’

A Belgian politician recently suggested that the wives of MPs impose a similar sex ban until the country ended a deadlock and formed.

âIt worked in Kenya â a week after wives stopped having sex, a deal was on the table,â said Senator Marleen Temmerman, a qualified gynaecologist, in reference to 2009 women’s movements in the African country that called for a general sex strike after a conflict between its president and prime minister threatened to plunge it into chaos.

VIDEO: Find out more about the Mindanao Island sex strike