Drawing attention to the sex industry

3 June 1997

We must be grateful - again - to the government for drawing attention to Thailand’s sex industry and AIDS problem. Many people would like to draw a veil over these matters. But the government seizes every opportunity - obscure documentaries, dictionary definitions, magazine covers - to bring the issue into the spotlight.

The government could easily have ignored a couple of Malaysian cartoons. After all a cartoon is a cartoon, and the barb was aimed at Singapore. Thailand and Indonesia were featured in passing. Indonesia has simply taken no notice. But not Thailand.

This is good. We should not forget that Thailand has been one of the world centres of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. In the past politicians tried to suppress this. One prime minister announced AIDS was "no problem" in Thailand. Another minister urged provincial governors to promote sex tourism. A senior official wanted to arrest sex-workers found to be HIV-positive in order to protect the tourist trade.

This sort of denial is difficult now. The number estimated to be HIV-positive is now 6-800,000. Luckily, Thailand is also now one of the case-studies of AIDS containment. Not because of the politicians. But because of the initiative of the medical community.

HIV/AIDS has become so big here for one reason: the size of the sexual services trade. Many men buy women as part of everyday entertainment and socializing. Politicians included. Not long ago, one MP rewarded his canvassers by bringing them to Bangkok for a free night at a famous massage parlour.

The sex trade is a major industry. It employs around 2-300,000 as direct sex workers, plus many, many more in subsidiary roles. The total value-added is around 150 billion baht, about half the value-added of the banking, finance and real-estate sectors (before the current crisis).

Many influential local figures enjoy a hefty slice of this sex-trade income. Many of these same people help the politicians as financiers and election canvassers. Of course they expect something in return.

The huge local base of the sex trade has been the foundation for Thailand’s emergence as a centre of sex tourism. Government may not like the image. But it has never done anything to seriously reduce sex tourism. As long as government sees tourism as a major strategy for earning foreign exchange, this stance is unlikely to change.

Moreover, Thailand is now much more than just a centre of sex tourism. It has become one of the major centres of the international sex trade - which is reckoned to be even bigger than the international drugs trade.

Thailand exports sex-workers all over the world. The total number working overseas is around 50,000. The big destinations are Japan, Taiwan, Germany, and other parts of Europe. But there are also significant numbers in Singapore and Malaysia.

Thailand also imports sex-workers - from neighbouring countries like Burma, China, and Laos; from the Philippines; and from Eastern Europe. As a result of the size of this export-import traffic, Thailand has become an international clearing house in the flesh trade. Agents use Thailand as a staging point for moving women around the world.

The Foreign Ministry which drew attention to the Malaysian cartoons might argue that it has little to do with the sex trade. But that’s not true. Many sex-workers in Thailand are now foreign nationals. The proportion may be as high as 1-in-6, and increasing. Most of these are Burmese. They are rapidly replacing Thai recruits who can find better work. Agents who bring the foreigners across the borders, and the police and powerful figures who protect them, are making lots of money.

These immigrants are pulled here by the higher earnings. They are also pushed by the poverty and oppression at home. Thailand’s foreign policy supports the SLORC regime which is responsible for this poverty and oppression.

The resulting supply of cheap, poor, young illegal immigrants is now basic to Thailand’s sex trade. It is also basic to the spread of HIV/AIDS. These women are the most difficult to reach with prevention programmes, largely because they are illegal in two and often three ways - as unregistered aliens, as sex workers, and as minors. The northern border areas have long had the worse HIV statistics.

As the Foreign Ministry spokesman said, the cartoon’s caption "gives the impression that Thailand is full of Aids and prostitutes". We must thank the Foreign Minister and the Foreign Ministry for drawing attention in this way. There are many vested interests which make a lot of money from this business and would like to keep quiet about it. The sex industry in Thailand is huge, nasty and dangerous. We should not be allowed to ignore it.