A way out of the sex trade

They say women from the north of Thailand are the prettiest in the kingdom. And it is not just foreigners on sex tours who make such claims - the Thai Government is proud of them too. Coupled with their beauty is an apparently blase attitude towards prostitution that defies traditional thinking in most parts of the world, and indeed most parts of Thailand. Not only is prostitution acceptable, it is part of a family system where daughters apparently feel that selling their bodies is morally defensible. These are the children of the mountains who are sold by their parents into prostitution in the notorious flesh-pots of Bangkok, Pattaya and beyond. The battle to beat this trend is a tough one; they are fighting history. Their mothers too have been prostitutes, and in the way of the hill tribes, returned to marry with no shame attached to their stint in the red-light districts of the cities. But the government is hoping to break this vicious circle with a programme that effectively plucks 'at risk' girls from their remote villages and shows them how to avoid prostitution. Teachers in hard-to-reach, high-risk areas have been tasked with secretly observing girls completing form six and gathering data on their families. They do this with a view to selecting girls for what is in effect a scholarship providing an additional three years' schooling to take them to junior high school level. The thinking behind the Sema Life Project is that the extra schooling and vocational skills will give the girls a better chance of avoiding prostitution. First in line for the programme are children from families and communities that have previously provided workers for the sex industry. Other criteria applied in the monitoring scheme include children from poor families, children of drug addicts or prisoners, and orphans. So far, about 13,000 girls have been through the system, and the teachers involved believe it is working. Although it began in 1994, the project has gained increasing momentum in the past 12 months and is winning vital support from parents sometimes reluctant to allow their children to participate. The South China Morning Post visited one of the 19 schools established for Sema students. It was north of Chiang Mai and many of the students were from ethnic minorities. Some had sisters who turned to prostitution and died of AIDS, others had no family left at all. But most were positive they could break the mould and get worthwhile jobs. 'If I was made to be a prostitute, I would still feel shame, but the feeling is stronger that I should give priority to my family,' said one 14-year-old student. 'Here I learn typing and hairdressing as well as my schooling, I miss my family, but I know I can help them by learning and getting a good job.' Teachers say it is difficult at first for the girls to fit into the environment of boarding school. 'They are used to being in a very small village inaccessible to the outside world . . . moving here can be hard for them but most come to get used to it,' one said. Coupled with the Sema programme, legislative changes are in the works to target customers of the prostitutes and more importantly the parents who sell them into the sex trade. Dr Saisuree Chutikul, adviser to the office of the prime minister, is a long-time campaigner for the rights of women and has almost singlehandedly pushed the government into an action plan on prostitution. She proposes decriminalising prostitution, but faces too much opposition to that. Instead, she hopes parliament will pass draft laws to target customers and pimps. 'Men, mostly men are very much opposed to that,' says the tough-talking former cabinet minister. 'We want to get the media to take pictures of customers when raids are carried out - the customers and pimps - if the law and public exposure threatens them, there is less demand for prostitutes.' Non-government agencies in Thailand estimate up to two million female prostitutes are working in the country, but government figures are about 120 of that. Either way, Dr Saisuree is pushing hard for change. 'It took 40 years for the non-smoking sign to go up in planes . . . so, if it took 40 years to change smoking habits, how long will it be to change sex [habits]? 'It's not a financial problem, it's the attitude . . . there will be implementation problems, but we have to start with changing the law. 'Foreign affairs is worried about our image [overseas]. I am not worried about our image, I worry about the young people.' Part of this worry is the flood of paedophiles into Thailand - a phenomenon plaguing other Asian countries. Dr Saisuree said Thailand's street children were falling easy prey to foreign sex tourists looking particularly for young boys. She tells a story of a boy she knew from the streets of Pat Pong in Bangkok. Having helped him and his mother, she had hoped they would work towards getting on the straight and narrow. Instead, she found him in the room of a foreign paedophile when she accompanied police on a raid in Pattaya. Dr Saisuree is adamant that a hardline approach is the only way and is recommending that senior police blitz villages in the hill tribe areas and effectively 'scare' parents into doing the right thing by their children. 'We have a lot of problems with the hill tribe people - they have no papers often and have lived on both sides [of the Thai-Burma border] . . . they are like gypsies in the north. 'These girls are going with men for 200 baht [HK$66] and only getting 20 baht for themselves, the rest goes to their pimps and others. 'Police have to co-operate and some police are not co-operating,' she said. But police Colonel Surasak Suttharom begs to differ. His team of 40 officers is responsible for suppressing prostitution throughout Thailand. Much of his work focuses on foreign prostitutes illegally imported from neighbouring countries. Somehow, his figures don't support his claims that his efforts are working. In 1993, his unit's first full year of operation, 544 foreign prostitutes were arrested, the following year, only nine were taken off the streets. Last year, arrests totalled 181. His explanation for the low arrest figure in 1994? 'I was on leave for further studies.' The following year's reduced arrest figures? 'Successful policing.' He rejected suggestions that the people bringing foreign prostitutes into Thailand had simply switched tactics or were paying police officers to look the other way. But he has convinced some of the kingdom's pop stars to put their voices to a CD of songs he wrote aimed at children targeted by the procurers to work in Thailand and abroad. 'I used to write poetry, and so I wrote these songs.' The CDs are sold and the profit used to benefit vulnerable children. One of the songs, Exported Girl, starts like this. 'She is a high-priced article of trade, a colourful flower exported abroad, 'Accelerated to grow and stamped 'made in Thailand'. 'She is like a flower in roadside bars in Japan, and looked down upon, poor lost girl.' But Dr Suteera Thomson, of the Association for the Promotion of the Status of Women, says it will take more than songs to help the girls she sees. She deals with the aftermath of prostitution and provides a home to girls and women of all ages who need to break the cycle and put their lives back on track. 'We see women and children with all sorts of problems, but we are seeing more arrive, not less,' she said.