Thread: Sex in grey areas : how the junta threatens the lives of sex workers

Prachatai
Sun, 07/01/2018

Bribes are unavoidable for businesses that operate in the grey market. Sex businesses must forfeit considerably high sums of money to authorities to persuade them to turn a blind eye to sex work, especially if their businesses operate in tourist districts.

June (pseudonym), a 39 year old ‘bar girl’ from Ao Nang in Krabi province, recounts that each week the ‘bar’ owner provides a list of sums of money to be given to various government departments. Like clockwork, representatives from those departments come to the ‘bar’ to collect the bribes.

In June’s capacity as the bar’s de-facto accountant, she remembers that few departments sought out bribes in the past. But after the coup in 2014, the number of departments demanding ‘kickbacks’ grew.

‘Once a man came into the bar — swaggering — and said that he was from Region Eight and that he was here to collect money. He said that if we didn’t pay, he would have the bar closed. I didn’t have an issue with the money per se. No matter what, we had to pay it. But why didn’t he speak with us politely? He said he came from Region Eight but what is Region Eight? What does it do? I still don’t know. When I asked why we had to pay the sum, he said his boss ordered us to,’ recounts June.

‘Region Eight’ is not the only department that has paid a visit to June — there have been visits from ‘the provincial police’, the ‘investigations division’, ‘division two’, ‘division five’ and many more.

According to June, each department demands between 1,000-2,000 baht. While in the past, the bar forfeited around 2,000-3,000 baht as bribes each week, that amount has now risen to 10,000 baht a week after the coup. On top of these regular payments are ‘tokens of kindness’ that officials demand now and then, such as for festivals or senior police officers’ birthday parties, which cost 500-1,000 baht each.

These officials do not provide evidence of the monetary transactions, nor does June have any way of determining whether they genuinely are department representatives. They never present ID before collecting money. Still, June has little choice but to pay the bribes to whoever these men are, out of a desire to avoid trouble.

When Prachatai contacted Ao Nang’s district government, Supot Chotchoi, a representative, denied any part by the government in these monetary exchanges. Supot insisted that the district government’s only responsibilities on service businesses are to check that premises meet health and safety standards.

“There are three types of service businesses in Ao Nang district. First, there are more than 40 four and five-star hotels. Second, there are small hotels and resorts. These make up 70-80 per cent of service businesses. Third, there are entertainment venues (bars). About 13-14 of these businesses fill up a street, and there are 4-5 more along the beachfront. Our responsibilities are to check whether they are properly registered, whether their safety procedures are adequate, whether they manage their trash well.”

While the law prohibits sex work in Thailand, bribes involve big money for authorities. If we roughly multiply June’s sums with bar number provided by the Ao Nang local government, Ao Nang ‘officials’ collectively reap as much as 800,000 baht a month.

Although sex workers in Ao Nang report that they have no idea what becomes of these funds, they are relieved that authorities do not interfere with their work once bribes were paid.

But in some regions in Thailand, authorities demand more than bribes from brothels. Sex worker in Mahachai, Samut Sakhon, are facing harassment from authorities despite their employers paying bribes of up to 3,000 baht a day.

In Mahachai, the world of brothels frequently mingles with the world of migrant workers in the local fish industry, both legal and undocumented.

Pla, a former sex worker turned volunteer at a women’s rights organisation Empower Foundation, recounts that police cars patrol the brothel zones every night. They do not look for sex workers so much as undocumented foreign workers who came for brothels’ service. Any workers without work permits are promptly arrested and forced to pay bribes to be free.

In the past, authorities rarely interfered with brothels themselves, concerned primarily with cracking down on illegal migrant workers. But as in Krabi, the lives of sex workers in Mahachai have changed since the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) came into power.

Pla told Prachatai that rising bribes were the first sign of the change. While in the past, brothels might have paid some 2,000 baht a day in bribes, that sum has now risen to 3,000 baht a day. But the most massive effects came with the passage of the NCPO’s Managing Alien Workers Act.

Before the NCPO came into power, foreign workers comprised a sizeable segment of sex workers’ customers in Mahachai. However, the strict penalties against illegal workers set by the NCPO convinced many foreign workers to return to their home countries. Plan estimates that the Act resulted in a drop in her brothel’s customer numbers by 40 per cent.

Jiw (pseudonym), a brothel owner, also began facing challenges after the 2014 coup. For the first two years of the military government, her business mostly remained usual and could make between 20,000-30,000 baht a month, and up to 40,000 baht during holiday periods. But she estimates that the NCPO’s harsh measures on foreign workers have resulted in a decline in business of more than 90 per cent. These days, her brothel makes losses rather than profits.

“If it continues being like this, I’ll probably have to close down. I just can’t survive. I’ll have to find other work. For my employees, if they have two or three clients an evening, that’s enough to make a living but I can’t. I have to pay water bills, electricity bills, bribes and 3000 baht a day for rent. Now I can make ends meet. But if it continues to be like this until the end of the year [2017], many brothels may have to close down.”

“Before Prayuth came into power, we had lots of clients on paydays, during festivals, on public holidays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. People were crashing into each other when walking down the street. All the workers were hopeful. These days, nobody hopes. It’s all down to luck. There are few clients even at the end of the month.”

Streets that were once lively with people are now empty, the exception being patrolling police officers. These days, however, they are targeting sex workers themselves.

Pla reports that after the 2014 coup, authorities began randomly inspecting sex workers more often — searching specifically for drugs and condoms, the latter which officials took as evidence of prostitution. Some workers are let off with a minor fine, but unlucky brothels may be closed for two or three days and still have to pay daily bribes.

“In the past, when people fought in a bar, we had to wait an hour for the police to come after calling them. By then, the people fighting had gone back home. But these days, I see police officers more often than my husband,” Pla says and laughs.

Also, the authorities often ask sex workers for active ‘cooperation’ in their crackdown on sex workers. Pla explains that when the police are trying to meet annual quotas, they ask brothels to send one or two workers to report themselves to the police station. The workers are then made to give fingerprints and pay a fine of between 100-200 baht. Although the sum is relatively small, the workers walk away with criminal records.

But all of the above describes only the actions of local police — which are cute and cuddly when compared with Thailand’s national police forces from Bangkok. Sex workers have no way of knowing when Bangkok police forces will spring an inspection, whereby authorities forcibly enter the back rooms of brothels where sexual intercourse takes place.

In the worst case Jiw remembers, the police caught her with a client and accused her of human trafficking. The subsequent fine she paid of 50,000 baht as “bribe”. Official punishment would have presumably been even worse.

“An officer turned asked how much I could give them. At first, I said 20,000 baht, but he wouldn’t accept. So I said that all I had was 30,000 baht, he still wasn’t satisfied. So I asked him how much he wanted. He said 50,000 baht. I called one of my workers and asked her to collect 1,000-2,000 baht from the others. We managed to get the other 20,000 baht, which the worker delivered to the police station. After that, the officer released me.”

While the NCPO views the sex industry as the cause of human trafficking, sex work is also voluntarily chosen by many as a means of making a living — a distinction that the junta’s policies do not recognise. In this way, the government’s crackdown on the sex industry is pushing many workers away from the jobs that support their livelihoods.

Fear of police interference has convinced many sex workers to leave employment at permanent establishments, in favour of freelancing by advertising themselves on the internet. But as Prachatai’s previous instalment of ‘Sex in Grey Areas’ found, independent sex workers are at higher risk of abuse at the hands of clients and face critical financial burdens.

The Thai government’s harsh policies against sex workers are pushing many workers towards precarity. But of course, to blame the NCPO solely is unfair.The junta’s crackdown on sex work has been enabled by general support from Thai society, where sex work continues to carry a significant social stigma.

So how should society view sex work, so that the dignity of sex workers is upheld?

Branding sex workers as ‘sources of disease’, ‘sluts’ or ‘lazy’ are not only a distortion of the truth but marginalise them to the outskirts of society. But nor are all sex workers ‘victims’ of sex trafficking, poverty or patriarchal society. Such discourses serve only to give legitimacy to the Thai government’s heavy-handed management of the industry.

One sex worker imparted the following advice to this writer. Perhaps they are words that may help the rest of society see the stories of sex workers with clarity:

“When writing about us, don’t view us as bad or ‘slutty’ women. At the same time, don’t pity us as if we are always victims. Just write that we are workers who do not have the rights that we should be entitled to. Only that is enough.”

Military officers usually assists police in cracking down brothels (Photo from Khaosod)

https://prachatai.com/english/node/7540

Prachatai
Sun, 07/01/2018

Bribes are unavoidable for businesses that operate in the grey market. Sex businesses must forfeit considerably high sums of money to authorities to persuade them to turn a blind eye to sex work, especially if their businesses operate in tourist districts.

June (pseudonym), a 39 year old ‘bar girl’ from Ao Nang in Krabi province, recounts that each week the ‘bar’ owner provides a list of sums of money to be given to various government departments. Like clockwork, representatives from those departments come to the ‘bar’ to collect the bribes.

In June’s capacity as the bar’s de-facto accountant, she remembers that few departments sought out bribes in the past. But after the coup in 2014, the number of departments demanding ‘kickbacks’ grew.

‘Once a man came into the bar — swaggering — and said that he was from Region Eight and that he was here to collect money. He said that if we didn’t pay, he would have the bar closed. I didn’t have an issue with the money per se. No matter what, we had to pay it. But why didn’t he speak with us politely? He said he came from Region Eight but what is Region Eight? What does it do? I still don’t know. When I asked why we had to pay the sum, he said his boss ordered us to,’ recounts June.

‘Region Eight’ is not the only department that has paid a visit to June — there have been visits from ‘the provincial police’, the ‘investigations division’, ‘division two’, ‘division five’ and many more.

According to June, each department demands between 1,000-2,000 baht. While in the past, the bar forfeited around 2,000-3,000 baht as bribes each week, that amount has now risen to 10,000 baht a week after the coup. On top of these regular payments are ‘tokens of kindness’ that officials demand now and then, such as for festivals or senior police officers’ birthday parties, which cost 500-1,000 baht each.

These officials do not provide evidence of the monetary transactions, nor does June have any way of determining whether they genuinely are department representatives. They never present ID before collecting money. Still, June has little choice but to pay the bribes to whoever these men are, out of a desire to avoid trouble.

When Prachatai contacted Ao Nang’s district government, Supot Chotchoi, a representative, denied any part by the government in these monetary exchanges. Supot insisted that the district government’s only responsibilities on service businesses are to check that premises meet health and safety standards.

“There are three types of service businesses in Ao Nang district. First, there are more than 40 four and five-star hotels. Second, there are small hotels and resorts. These make up 70-80 per cent of service businesses. Third, there are entertainment venues (bars). About 13-14 of these businesses fill up a street, and there are 4-5 more along the beachfront. Our responsibilities are to check whether they are properly registered, whether their safety procedures are adequate, whether they manage their trash well.”

While the law prohibits sex work in Thailand, bribes involve big money for authorities. If we roughly multiply June’s sums with bar number provided by the Ao Nang local government, Ao Nang ‘officials’ collectively reap as much as 800,000 baht a month.

Although sex workers in Ao Nang report that they have no idea what becomes of these funds, they are relieved that authorities do not interfere with their work once bribes were paid.

But in some regions in Thailand, authorities demand more than bribes from brothels. Sex worker in Mahachai, Samut Sakhon, are facing harassment from authorities despite their employers paying bribes of up to 3,000 baht a day.

In Mahachai, the world of brothels frequently mingles with the world of migrant workers in the local fish industry, both legal and undocumented.

Pla, a former sex worker turned volunteer at a women’s rights organisation Empower Foundation, recounts that police cars patrol the brothel zones every night. They do not look for sex workers so much as undocumented foreign workers who came for brothels’ service. Any workers without work permits are promptly arrested and forced to pay bribes to be free.

In the past, authorities rarely interfered with brothels themselves, concerned primarily with cracking down on illegal migrant workers. But as in Krabi, the lives of sex workers in Mahachai have changed since the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) came into power.

Pla told Prachatai that rising bribes were the first sign of the change. While in the past, brothels might have paid some 2,000 baht a day in bribes, that sum has now risen to 3,000 baht a day. But the most massive effects came with the passage of the NCPO’s Managing Alien Workers Act.

Before the NCPO came into power, foreign workers comprised a sizeable segment of sex workers’ customers in Mahachai. However, the strict penalties against illegal workers set by the NCPO convinced many foreign workers to return to their home countries. Plan estimates that the Act resulted in a drop in her brothel’s customer numbers by 40 per cent.

Jiw (pseudonym), a brothel owner, also began facing challenges after the 2014 coup. For the first two years of the military government, her business mostly remained usual and could make between 20,000-30,000 baht a month, and up to 40,000 baht during holiday periods. But she estimates that the NCPO’s harsh measures on foreign workers have resulted in a decline in business of more than 90 per cent. These days, her brothel makes losses rather than profits.

“If it continues being like this, I’ll probably have to close down. I just can’t survive. I’ll have to find other work. For my employees, if they have two or three clients an evening, that’s enough to make a living but I can’t. I have to pay water bills, electricity bills, bribes and 3000 baht a day for rent. Now I can make ends meet. But if it continues to be like this until the end of the year [2017], many brothels may have to close down.”

“Before Prayuth came into power, we had lots of clients on paydays, during festivals, on public holidays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. People were crashing into each other when walking down the street. All the workers were hopeful. These days, nobody hopes. It’s all down to luck. There are few clients even at the end of the month.”

Streets that were once lively with people are now empty, the exception being patrolling police officers. These days, however, they are targeting sex workers themselves.

Pla reports that after the 2014 coup, authorities began randomly inspecting sex workers more often — searching specifically for drugs and condoms, the latter which officials took as evidence of prostitution. Some workers are let off with a minor fine, but unlucky brothels may be closed for two or three days and still have to pay daily bribes.

“In the past, when people fought in a bar, we had to wait an hour for the police to come after calling them. By then, the people fighting had gone back home. But these days, I see police officers more often than my husband,” Pla says and laughs.

Also, the authorities often ask sex workers for active ‘cooperation’ in their crackdown on sex workers. Pla explains that when the police are trying to meet annual quotas, they ask brothels to send one or two workers to report themselves to the police station. The workers are then made to give fingerprints and pay a fine of between 100-200 baht. Although the sum is relatively small, the workers walk away with criminal records.

But all of the above describes only the actions of local police — which are cute and cuddly when compared with Thailand’s national police forces from Bangkok. Sex workers have no way of knowing when Bangkok police forces will spring an inspection, whereby authorities forcibly enter the back rooms of brothels where sexual intercourse takes place.

In the worst case Jiw remembers, the police caught her with a client and accused her of human trafficking. The subsequent fine she paid of 50,000 baht as “bribe”. Official punishment would have presumably been even worse.

“An officer turned asked how much I could give them. At first, I said 20,000 baht, but he wouldn’t accept. So I said that all I had was 30,000 baht, he still wasn’t satisfied. So I asked him how much he wanted. He said 50,000 baht. I called one of my workers and asked her to collect 1,000-2,000 baht from the others. We managed to get the other 20,000 baht, which the worker delivered to the police station. After that, the officer released me.”

While the NCPO views the sex industry as the cause of human trafficking, sex work is also voluntarily chosen by many as a means of making a living — a distinction that the junta’s policies do not recognise. In this way, the government’s crackdown on the sex industry is pushing many workers away from the jobs that support their livelihoods.

Fear of police interference has convinced many sex workers to leave employment at permanent establishments, in favour of freelancing by advertising themselves on the internet. But as Prachatai’s previous instalment of ‘Sex in Grey Areas’ found, independent sex workers are at higher risk of abuse at the hands of clients and face critical financial burdens.

The Thai government’s harsh policies against sex workers are pushing many workers towards precarity. But of course, to blame the NCPO solely is unfair.The junta’s crackdown on sex work has been enabled by general support from Thai society, where sex work continues to carry a significant social stigma.

So how should society view sex work, so that the dignity of sex workers is upheld?

Branding sex workers as ‘sources of disease’, ‘sluts’ or ‘lazy’ are not only a distortion of the truth but marginalise them to the outskirts of society. But nor are all sex workers ‘victims’ of sex trafficking, poverty or patriarchal society. Such discourses serve only to give legitimacy to the Thai government’s heavy-handed management of the industry.

One sex worker imparted the following advice to this writer. Perhaps they are words that may help the rest of society see the stories of sex workers with clarity:

“When writing about us, don’t view us as bad or ‘slutty’ women. At the same time, don’t pity us as if we are always victims. Just write that we are workers who do not have the rights that we should be entitled to. Only that is enough.”

If Prostitution is technically illegal and the Filth require a bung to let the whores ply their trade than that's sounds fair in my books.

The Whores would be crying a river if the Government banned it and they had to go underground or risk jail time.

Whores want it all eh.

While in the past, the bar forfeited around 2,000-3,000 baht as bribes each week, that amount has now risen to 10,000 baht a week after the coup.

Finally, someone has had the damn balls to tell the truth. I've been aware of this for a few years, through people I know, but was too damn scared to say it (maybe a coupla hints)- given the way things are. Hats off to Prachathai- that 'George Soros funded organization', according to the incorruptible yellow shirts.

Fifty Shades of Grey.

Fifty shades of Green.

The junta is "anti-corruption", according to some geniuses here.

NO no the junta is complete utter corruption. But, it is a transparent clear and open complete utter corruption. In the west, the respective government are all complete utter corruption, but well hidden, with the populace too stupid to care. every law, that is not about removing liberty, in the west is at the bequest off corporate lobbyists. Every single one.

It's OK if it's Good People, OK?. Bad People however cannot be corrupt- and We will tell you Who they are.

Heck, old Orwell had nothing on this.

Originally Posted by pseudolus

NO no the junta is complete utter corruption. But, it is a transparent clear and open complete utter corruption. In the west, the respective government are all complete utter corruption, but well hidden, with the populace too stupid to care. every law, that is not about removing liberty, in the west is at the bequest off corporate lobbyists. Every single one.

ahha good eyesight i see.... so so true. one of the reasons democracy doesnt work. a very dumb electorate.

Originally Posted by pseudolus

NO no the junta is complete utter corruption. But, it is a transparent clear and open complete utter corruption. In the west, the respective government are all complete utter corruption, but well hidden, with the populace too stupid to care. every law, that is not about removing liberty, in the west is at the bequest off corporate lobbyists. Every single one.

It's like drinking beer in public is allowed, once the bottle is wrapped in a paper:

Originally Posted by terry57

If Prostitution is technically illegal and the Filth require a bung to let the whores ply their trade than that's sounds fair in my books.

The Whores would be crying a river if the Government banned it and they had to go underground or risk jail time.

Whores want it all eh.

All sorts of people looking to wash money through cash-only businesses these days, Terry.

The 'grey' economy of Thailand is farkin huuugggee.

Originally Posted by Klondyke

It's like drinking beer in public is allowed, once the bottle is wrapped in a paper:

Booze companies and packaging industry. Not forgetting the "healthcare" providers who love booze - gives them a lot of customers.

Eagerly awaiting the junta's advice sex in brown areas

^The gay quarter?

Thailand's like Pirates of the Caribbean.

But instead of pirates, there are prostitutes.


And instead of the Caribbean, there are prostitutes.


And the Thai Junta-ese are extorting them?

Shocking.

You'd know.
Mind you, "Prostitutes of the Prostitutes".... Hmmmm.

Originally Posted by Madman

You'd know.