Though no Thai government has ever conducted a formal survey, in 2014 UNAIDS estimated that some 123,530 sex workers operate in Thailand, with sex industry contributing to 10 per cent of the revenue that the country generates from tourists. Another study in 2003 estimated that Thailand’s sex industry generates an annual US$4.3 billion dollars.
While sex work is evidently a pillar of the country’s economy and touches the lives of a great number of people, sex work remains outlawed in Thailand. This contradiction drives sex workers into precarity: they are excluded from government welfare and have no legal recourse if exploited by law enforcers or clients.
In this investigative report, Prachatai spoke with sex workers, government officials and NGO representatives to find out how sex workers navigate their grey status under the law. How do they maintain dignity in a society that attributes little value to their work and lives?
“Prostitutes just sell themselves”
‘Prostitutes sell only themselves, but wicked women sell the nation,’ a famous Thai Rat newspaper cartoonist once tweeted — as if the business of sex workers merely involves sleeping with clients and reaping the money.
Such a prejudiced view overlooks the fact that sex workers who work the market best rely on well-practiced skills like any good businessmen, be that in negotiating, bargaining or advertising themselves well. All these factors are crucial in enticing customers to return.
In this industry, standing out is crucial. For most sex workers, most clients come from low-income backgrounds such as taxi drivers, labourers, and young adults. One session may reap only 500-800 baht. Making a living then relies on being able to win multiple clients. Some sex workers operate in multiple locations to maximize client numbers, for example by wandering tourist spots when their usual base is quiet.
Kam, a 24-year old independent sex worker, usually waits for clients at her usual spot in Bangkok from early evening until 3 AM. On a good day, she makes between 3000-4000 baht a night. But on a quiet evening where she has only one or two clients — or none at all — Kam turns to advertising her services online.
Young and beautiful, Kam could likely find steady employment at a ‘massage’ parlour or even a high-class bar. But she explains that operating as an independent sex worker provides freedom.
“It’s liberating. If on any given day I’m busy, or I’m on my period, or if I’m feeling lazy, I just won’t come. I don’t have to ask anyone for leaving. I don’t have to have my pay cut. Nobody else is directing my life. I keep every single baht that I make from clients. Nobody else gets a cut.”
But with this freedom comes certain instabilities, least of all the risks of encountering authorities.
While images of police officers raiding brothels have repeatedly made headlines in Thai media, officials usually do not obstruct the industry. But at irregular intervals each year, public pressure on the police to show the fruits of their work escalates crackdowns on sex workers.
Sex workers themselves have no way of knowing when these periods of heightened surveillance will come — that is, when they may inadvertently appear on front page news.
Another inescapable risk in sex work comes in the form of undesirable clients. Sometimes a client may be intoxicated, refuse to use protection, or refuse to pay the fee. In dealing with these situations, workers sometimes risk physical danger. Without legal protections, the best sex workers can do is spread warnings of such individuals by word of mouth.
In the face of the risks of working independently, many sex workers trade their freedom for the relative safety that comes with fixed employment in businesses such as ‘karaoke’ bars, ‘massage’ parlours or brothels.
Though sex workers with fixed employment can be safe from undesirable clients as there is security staff in their workplace, the threat from state authorities still exists.
Illegal trade and ‘legal’ operation
So-called ‘karaoke bars’ commonly feature karaoke machines as décor, even though few or no customers visit such venues to sing, but rather to buy sex service. Why the farce?
While prostitution is prohibited under Thai law, ‘karaoke bars’ and ‘massage parlours’ can be legally registered as normal businesses. When arrests of sex workers occur at such premises, authorities usually treat the act of prostitution as an exchange between the sex worker and the client — an exchange to which the owner of the premise was not a party.
Even so, cases of clients being charged are few and far between, giving rise to the popular quip that, ‘employing sex workers is legal, being a sex worker is illegal, clients get off scot-free.’ Brothel operators are only accused of crimes when simultaneously breaking other laws, such as the employment of underage workers or illegal migrants.
In June 2016, an undercover police investigation into a Huai Kwang district massage parlour, “Nataree’, resulted in the arrest of 119 employees, seven of whom were underage (of this seven, six were Burmese migrant workers). While the employees were accused of engaging in prostitution, the brothel owner was accused of crimes related to human trafficking.
Security officers raid Nataree massage parlour (Photo from PPTV)
Undercover police investigations, where officers may pose as customers, have drawn criticisms for being hypocritical, if not themselves instances of illegal behaviour. Questionable behaviour has included the inviting of media to photograph sex workers during sting operations, and officials themselves persuading sex workers to engage in intercourse.
Decha Kittwitthayanon, a lawyer and academic, has documented cases where officers have utilised the services of sex workers, before using the discharge and condoms filled with semen as evidence of illegal activity.
“The Supreme Court reasoned that having intercourse with sex workers was a necessary and appropriate action for finding evidence of the activities of criminals. They pointed out that officials had no other choice but to use such measures.”
Chantawipa Apisuk, the director of Empower Foundation, an organisation that has promoted the rights of sex workers in Thailand for more than 30 years, points out both the cruelty and lack of reasoning behind sting operations.
“I don’t think sting operations should happen because things that were used to protect yourself from diseases become instead things that result in your arrest. They simply become wrongdoers.”
“But officials say that if they don’t [go undercover], they won’t be able to make arrests. But that makes me ask, why do they need to be arrested? Everybody has sex. I have sex. So why is having sex for work wrong?”
Jet (pseudonym), a former ‘bar girl’ turned volunteer at Empower Foundation, tells a harrowing story where one official went as far as to solicit an underage sex worker.
“Once a police officer posed as a client and asked a brothel owner whether there were any workers under the age of 18. When the owner said there weren’t any, the officer asked them to find one, and the owner did so. At first, the girl didn’t dare to go [have sex], not because she was afraid of the police, but of meeting a nasty client.
“But the officer persisted, kept flirting, acted sweet to befriend the girl until finally, she began to trust him — began to feel that, ‘This guy is a good person. He probably wouldn’t hurt me’. Simply, she grew fond of the officer. In the end, when she agreed to go with the officer, she was arrested.
“But do you know the saddest part? The officer that she trusted was the one who interrogated her. He took notes on the interrogation right to the girl’s face.”
Unfortunately, arrests of sex workers can have far-reaching complications for their careers. Jet reports that most sex workers who are implicated in sting operations choose to leave the industry. Those who desire to keep working struggle to find work, since employers fear they will draw the attention of authorities.
Jet added that sting operations at brothels have increased in frequency ever since the Trafficked in Persons 2016 report ranked Thailand as among those countries with the highest incidents of human trafficking. She also warns the government against blurring sex workers who voluntarily enter the industry with victims of human trafficking.
Chantawipa argues that if the junta was committed to ending human trafficking, it would invest funds into exposing the networks of influential people and even state officials who benefit from the market — rather than chasing and arresting petty actors who may not even be victims of human trafficking, but rather voluntarily sell sex.
However, the Thai Royal Police have proved unresponsive to criticisms of their sting operations against sex workers. During a meeting with the UN Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), a representative of the Royal Thai Police went as far as to deny the issue’s existence.
“In the case of sting operations, I insist that the Office of the Royal Thai Police has never included them in official policy, and has never supported officers to use such measures,” claimed Maj Gen Kraibun Suadsong.
This article was first published in Thai on Prachatai and translated into English by Catherine Yen.