Tourists will be back 'for sex'

January 10, 2005

Phuket - Phuket's sex industry, a mainstay of the local economy, may have been hard hit by the tsunamis which ravaged the Thai coast but prostitutes and their clients are convinced that business will soon be brisk again.

On Patong's main drag on the island of Phuket, the open-air bars, discos and strippers clubs stand in rows as far as the eye can see.

But in spite of the neon lights, the loud music and the girls the clients are few and far between.

Work has dropped by an estimated 80% since the tidal waves struck on December 26, and prostitutes, bar owners, taxi drivers and restauranteurs are among those feeling the impact from the tsunamis that smashed into Indian Ocean shorelines killing tens of thousands of people.

Usually at this time of year, the area is teeming with people. Some 20 000 girls - and boys - work on Patong.

But after the waves hit, many sex workers returned to their families, generally to the northeast of Thailand, to wait for better days.

The future, however, is not without promise.

"Tourists coming in family groups won't be back for quite a while but the tourists who come for the bars, for the sex, yes. And from now, from March," says Angel Bar owner, Belgian Georges Hutsenbang.

"I think that in two weeks the 'farangs' (foreigners) will be back. They are intelligent, they know that the tsunami will never return," said 30-year-old Na, who has worked for the past few days at the Angel Bar where young women sit on stools, smiling and flirting with western clients.

Officially illegal
Prostitution in Thailand is unlike anywhere in the West. Here, the sex trade, while rarely offered from street corners, permeates thousands of bars, discos, massage parlours and restaurants and workers often work independently.

Prostitution is officially illegal in Thailand but officials estimate the number of sex workers at about 80 000 people. International non-governmental organisations, however, put the number dramatically higher at between 800 000 and two million women and men.

In Phuket, as elsewhere in the kingdom, the revenues from the flesh trade are hard to evaluate but working girls claim to make between 10,000-50,000 baht (approx. $250 to $1,250 USD) each month and the industry remains crucial to the local economy.

The day after the tsunami disaster, the bars of Patong stayed shut. But the day after that, all had reopened. Some had even reopened before all traces of the tsunamis tides could be removed.

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