Hidden Iceberg or White Elephant? Sexual Slavery in Thailand

[Hootad Binky]

I saw "Bangkok Girl" was playing again last week on tv, over and over again, in fact. If you haven't seen it, it's an attempt at a breathless expose of the alleged evils of sex tourism in Thailand. Apparently the eponymous girl was reported murdered in a post-script to the documentary, though this had nothing to do with the bleary-eyed beer-drinking tourists she served in Clinton Plaza.

I've heard reports that bar beers and nightclubs aimed at foreigners only amount to about 5-10% of the total prostitution industry in Thailand, but it's all you hear about in the Western media. Perhaps as Westerners we need to see ourselves as complicit somehow.

But the really nasty stuff, the really exploitative below-the-radar stuff, is never really heard about that much. No-one wants to criticize the Thai government, I guess. Or maybe people don't care.

I read this article and then went looking for it again and it was hard to find on the net. Which says something, I think.

But anything involving Westerners? There's a whole industry devoted to it, from Christopher Moore's crappy novels to various and sundry Bargirl Lit and more lately the backpacker who after a few beers for bravery starts filming in a bar beer area and thinks he'll be up for an Oscar. Bangkok Girl had a lot more footage of drunken, loutish farangs than it did of "exploitation" of Bangkok girls. But the Western audiences and broadcaster eat it up, hence BG was one of the more successful (and lucrative) indie Canadian docs last year.

But meanwhile...


"Lin Lin" was thirteen years old when she was recruited by an agent for work in Thailand. Her father took $480 from the agent with the understanding that his daughter would pay the loan back out of her earnings. The agent took "Lin Lin" to Bangkok, and three days later she was taken to the Ran Dee Prom brothel. "Lin Lin" did not know what was going on until a man came into her room and started touching her breasts and body and then forced her to have sex. For the next two years, "Lin Lin" worked in various parts of Thailand in four different brothels, all but one owned by the same family. The owners told her she would have to keep prostituting herself until she paid off her father's debt. Her clients, who often included police, paid the owner $4 each time. If she refused a client's demands, she was slapped and threatened by the owner.



She worked every day except for the two days off each month she was allowed for her menstrual period. Once she had to borrow money to pay for medicine to treat a painful vaginal infection. This amount was added to her debt. On January 18, 1993 the Crime Suppression Division of the Thai police raided the brothel in which "Lin Lin" worked, and she was taken to a shelter run by a local non-governmental organization. She was fifteen years old, had spent over two years of her young life in compulsory prostitution, and tested positive for the human immunodeficiency virus or HIV.

"Lin Lin" is just one of thousands of Burmese women and girls who have been trafficked and sold into what amounts to female sexual slavery in Thailand. In the last two years, Thai NGOs estimate that at a minimum, some twenty thousand Burmese women and girls are suffering Lee's fate, or worse, and that ten thousand new recruits come in every year. They are moved from one brothel to another as the demand for new faces dictates, and often end up being sent back to Burma after a year or two to recruit their own successors.

These Burmese women and girls are only a fraction of the estimated 800,000 to two million prostitutes currently working in Thailand. We focus this report on the Burmese trafficking victims because of the range of violations of internationally-recognized human rights that they suffer, from debt bondage to arbitrary detention, and because government officials, particularly form Thailand, are complicit in these violations both by direct involvement in the brothels and by failing to enforce Thailand's obligations under both national and international law.

The Women's Rights Project and Asia Watch, both divisions of Human Rights Watch, traveled to Thailand to investigate the trafficking of Burmese women and girls into prostitution and to assess the responsibility of the Thai government for this problem. We made three trips to Thailand: in September 1992 for three weeks, in January and February 1993 for three weeks, and July 1993 for one week. On the first trip, an Asia Watch staff member fluent in Thai was accompanied by a consultant who was fluent in Burmese and Shan. Together they interviewed thirty Burmese women and girls in depth, most from remote rural villages in Shan state, most from peasant or agricultural laborer backgrounds. They ranged in age from twelve to twenty-two, although the average age was seventeen. All but one had been lured to Thailand by the prospect of improving their economic situation. Only four knew they would be working as prostitutes, and even those four had no idea of what the actual work would be like.



Most of our interviews took place at emergency shelters for trafficking victims run by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Chiangmai and Bangkok. We were also able to speak with women and girls detained at the Immigration Detention Center in Bangkok. In the course of the three visits, we conducted interviews along the Thai-Burmese border in Mae Sai, Three Pagodas Pass and Ranong. In addition to our own interviews, we had access to other primary source material, including the transcripts of twenty-one interviews with Burmese women conducted by an NGO in Chiangmai in October 1992. We interviewed officials in Mae Sai, Chiangmai and Bangkok, including Police Colonel Surasak Suttharom, the deputy commander of the Crime Suppression Division of the Thai police, and Dr. Saisuree Chutikul, a member of the Thai cabinet in 1992 and, after the September 1992 elections, an adviser to the new Chuan administration. Finally, we consulted with academic specialists such as Dr. Vicharn Vithayasai of the Faculty of Medicine at Chiangmai University.

In the interviews with the women and girls, we realized that simple questions and answers masked a much more complex reality. For example, many of the girls, when asked if they knew they would be working in prostitution before they came to Thailand, said, "Yes." But when we asked what they understood prostitution to be, we would get responses such as "wearing Western clothes in a restaurant." Likewise, when asked if they were able to leave the brothels freely, many initially said, "Yes." But when asked if in fact they had ever tried to leave, almost all said they had not dared to do so because they had no money or because they feared being arrested or sold to another brothel. When we asked if they could refuse clients, again, the answer was almost unanimously, "Yes." Yet asked to give specific examples, most could not, and it turned out that refusal was almost unheard of because the women and girls feared repercussions from the brothel owner and pimps. Only slowly did the reality of recruitment and life in the brothels emerge.

Throughout this report, we draw on material from the original thirty interviews for examples, using Burmese pseudonyms for the real names of the victims.


more at:

Sex Trafficking in Burma and Thailand

[britmaveric]

However Bangkok Girl is alive/well. Just another twatish piece of shoddy journalism.

[Norton]

Anyone who has spent any time living or traveling around Thailand knows "brothels" of all sorts exist everywhere in the country. Most are blatantly obvious if you can read a little Thai and therefore are surely tolerated and even encouraged by Thai officials. Within 5 kms of the village I live in there are at least four of them. To what degree the girls working in them are voluntary or involuntary is always debatable. The ones I have seen where it is obvious the girls are there against their will are all located near borders with Burma, Lao or Cambodia.

[unkleblacky]

However Bangkok Girl is alive/well. Just another twatish piece of shoddy journalism.

love the use of twattish

[Hootad Binky]

However Bangkok Girl is alive/well. Just another twatish piece of shoddy journalism.

Do you have a link for this? The guy who made this film and has had the sun shining sanctimoniously out of his ass ever since and needs a reality check, as do all the fawning reviews he's got, which I tend to follow up on and contradict.

The entire film consists of bargirl interviews and salacious shots of Nana/Patpong/Cowboy, nothing more.

If it's a load of shite and the girl is fine I think it's time the filmmaker answer for it, as well as explain his complete ignorance of the other 90%, the truly nasty stuff that politically-incorrect NGO's don't want to discuss since white men are the preferred target of demonization and no-one wants their visa and cushy job permanently revoked.

[good2bhappy]

Under age or so called teenage brothels for Thais have existed for a long time.
IMO " Prostitution" is endemic in this country, what with the mia noi system.
Foriegners comprise the tip of the iceberg and have slipped into the upper end market. Stopping sex tourism etc won't get rid of the problem.

[good2bhappy]

Many Thais would like us to get out and leave their girls alone. We have raised the price for many young men who now have to rely on rape, drugs etc

[Spin]

Many Thais would like us to get out and leave their girls alone.

How many? I think that the vast majority of Thai's are laughing their tits off at the foreingers for choosing the girls they do.

Your statement would only ring true if the trend changed dramatically and females from a different demographic of Thai society were activily seen with foreigners.

[DrB0b]

Many Thais would like us to get out and leave their girls alone. We have raised the price for many young men who now have to rely on rape, drugs etc

Don't be silly, there are plenty of cheap Thai-speakers-only bars, brothels and generalized knocking-shops around. Far more than there are places frequented by farangs.

[Norton]

Many Thais would like us to get out and leave their girls alone. We have raised the price for many young men who now have to rely on rape, drugs etc

Don't be silly, there are plenty of cheap Thai-speakers-only bars, brothels and generalized knocking-shops around. Far more than there are places frequented by farangs.

We farangs sure have a way of overstating our importance on many subjects in Thailand. As DrBob states, thousands of cheap knock shops in the country and also high end private Thai only members clubs abound. I've been to a few as a guest of a Thai member. In addition to 100,000 baht plus annual membership fees it's not uncommon to see 50,000 baht spent in one evening.

[good2bhappy]

quote - How many? I think that the vast majority of Thai's are laughing their tits off at the foreingers for choosing the girls they do.

I was thinking about price inflation pressure and the Thais complaining of the cost of BGs

Re the other comment. That is why I said we were just the tip of the iceberg

[Zeth]

Many woman get put in these positions without a choice!!

SO MUCH IS SAID but, sadly nothing is DONE!!

[Hootad Binky]

I never met a bar girl who was forced to work in a bar for farang customers. They were there by choice, and often were supporting a child after their Thai husband ran off while also supporting family back home. Some married people I knew well and had good relationships, even started families. Of course regular occurances like this never make it into these documentaries, since all farang men who visit bar beers are evil sex tourists