Thread: Ban Chang - Aussies Help Thai Police Battle Sexual Exploitation

Aussies Help Thai Police Battle Sexual Exploitation

An Australian charity, helping the Thai police fight under-age sexual exploitation, conducted a sting op. Nov16. in Ban Chang, rescuing three 15-year-old females from a bar-brothel. This represents but a pin prick in the war against the exploiters of an estimated 1.2 million women and children that are victims of human trafficking annually.


November 18, 2010: An Australian humanitarian organisation, the Grey Man Charity, largely composed of ex-special forces soldiers and former police, is currently lending a hand in the fight against under-age sexual exploitation and trafficking in Thailand, assisting the Thai Police’s Anti-Human Trafficking Unit.

In an ongoing undercover undertaking, three 15-year-old girls were rescued in a sting operation from a bar-brothel in Ban Chang on Nov16 by members of the organisation, most of whom for security reasons wish to remain anonymous.

The bar in question, the Jigsaw Bar, was Western run, a minority among those in the town, but nevertheless a target and a first for the organisation that usually directs its efforts at native-run bars and brothels of this kind.

“We are putting the foreigners on notice that although we are not trying to stamp out prostitution we will intervene wherever we find under-aged girls,” President of the Grey Man Charity, John Curtis, told.

A charity spokesman said that the sting op. had been swift and entirely unexpected on the bar in a red-light street of similar bars catering to Western men’s sexual proclivities. The bar manager was duly arrested, charged with providing under-age girls for sex at a cost of Bt1000 a time.

The Grey Man team is bolstering its equipment and undercover techniques in an effort to wage a more effective campaign against sexual exploitation and trafficking all over Thailand, striking at brothels, beer bars, pimps and others involved in the trafficking and exploitation of children.

Each strike is orchestrated in tandem with the Thai Police’s Anti-Human Trafficking Unit.



“Working with the Thai police has shown us that the Thai government is serious about tackling the problem of human trafficking,” said a spokesman for the organisation.



The organisation’s spokesman refused to commit himself as to where the team expected to strike next, but it is highly likely that Pattaya and Rayong will be prime targets, due to the extent of the sex trade in these towns.

Previously, the Grey Man team conducted successful operations on the Thai-Cambodian border, rescuing four Cambodian girls aged between 14 and 15 from padlocked rooms with bars on the windows in Aranyaprathet.

That took place in September this year and Mama San and a number of Thai male helpers were arrested.

In addition, in January, 2010, two Vietnamese girls, aged 10 and 14, were liberated from a brothel in Cambodia by the Grey Man team.

Apart from direct preventative action, the charity also adopts a pre-emptive approach trying to scotch the unscrupulous trade before it even starts.

The Grey Man organisation also aids victims of the child-sex trade by assisting after-care providers and offering help to the victims, such as directing them into vocational training.

Pattaya Daily News