Education as a weapon for Thailand's sex workers

By Prangtip Daorueng
January 6, 2000

BANGKOK - Karn, a 25-year-old sex worker, is driven by one hope: to save as much money as she can and get out of the industry before her children are old enough to know what she does for a living.

"I want to work as a receptionist, or as an office worker somewhere - a career that makes me like other women," says the single mother of two whose children live with their grandmother in a northeast Thailand village.

For someone like Karn, who works in Patpong, Bangkok's red-light district, such ambitions would have been unachievable in the past. But she has been able to enroll in a non-formal education program run by EMPOWER, a non-governmental organization working with sex workers in Patpong. Today Karn is studying hard to pass a secondary school examination.

She juggles a tight daily schedule. After her work ends at 2 am every day, she goes back to her small apartment and studies before going to bed. She wakes up at 11am and goes to afternoon class before reporting for work at a bar at 4pm.

"I also take an English language course and will learn computers when the program is opened," she says.

Her hope is to enroll in college - and some of Patpong's former sex workers have already reached that level. "There are about 20 of us in different universities at the moment," one of her classmates says.

According to Chantavipa Apisuk, head of EMPOWER, there are more than 600 sex workers who join their 'school' each year. "The aim of the program is to help them to develop themselves in order to be able to protect themselves from danger or to minimize exploitation," she says.

Chantavipa says EMPOWER's goal is not to encourage sex workers to change their professions, but to give them options beyond it. "It is their decision what to do, but the problem they face in this profession, which is exploitation, is our concern. To survive it, they need education."

EMPOWER is one among several organizations that have obtained a license to run non-formal education programs from the Education Ministry. Dr Rung Gewdang, secretary general of the National Education Commission, says such programs are part of the government's plan to give education opportunities to disadvantaged groups.

"Non-formal education programs have helped a great deal, especially after the [economic] crisis," Rung says. "What we are doing now is developing the program to make it as effective as the formal one."

Such initiatives are useful in supporting the Thai government's efforts to maintain basic services like education even during the crisis. In a November report on the social consequences of the crisis, the Asian Development Bank points out that despite a cut in education expenditures, there is little evidence that it has led to reduced primary school enrollment. Indeed, UN officials note that Thailand has tried to preserve health and education standards, as neglect of those sectors can have long-term effects well beyond the economic impact of the crisis.

Poverty, though, is a more deep-rooted problem. Karn, for example, left her primary school in the countryside before she turned 15. She married early and divorced 11 years later to find herself moving from one factory to another, working in low-paid jobs to feed her two children.

She decided to go into sex work after the onset of the crisis, as factory jobs dried up and unemployment soared.

For EMPOWER's Chantavipa, the main reason for prostitution in Thailand is still economics. According to a study, ''Trafficking of Women for Sex Industry'' by Friend of Women Foundation, a Bangkok-based NGO, the modern pattern of prostitution in Thailand began in 1967 when women from northern villages migrated to towns and joined the sex trade due to poverty.

"Then the American military bases during the Vietnam War drew in more women to this business, and they began to go international in the late '70s and early '80s," Chantavipa says.

There is no exact figure for the number of sex workers in the country. The sex trade is not confined to brothels but operates from many other businesses - bars, restaurants, discotheques and nightclubs are involved.

Since prostitution is illegal (though tolerated) in Thailand, Chantavipa says, sex workers are not protected by any laws - but it is a different picture for the businesses that control the industry. "Now we are trying to push for the government to consider having sex workers protected under labor law. But meanwhile, they need to protect themselves. And education is the best weapon for them," explains Chantavipa.

As for Karn, she says she is studying not for herself but for her children. "I don't want my children to grow up and learn that their mother is a prostitute. That's why I am studying. I just hope that I don't have to return to Patpong."

Copyright 1999-2004, AsianSexGazette.com.  All rights reserved.  No content may be reproduced in whole or part without written permission.  Please contact us via the link below for re-print and syndication policies.