The 291st meeting of the Informal Northern Thai Group will be held in Chiang Mai on 14 August 2007. The details are:
Tuesday, August 14th 2007
At the Alliance Française – Chiang Mai – 7:30 pm
“Sacrifice” – The Story of Child Prostitutes from Burma
A talk and film presentation by Laurie Maund and members of the Shan Women’s Action Network (SWAN)
“Sacrifice” is a 50-minute documentary produced and directed by Ellen Bruno.
Synopsis: “Each year thousands of girls are recruited from rural Burmese villages to work in brothels in Thailand. Held for years in debt bondage, they suffer extreme abuse by pimps, clients, and the police. The trafficking of Burmese girls has soared in recent years as a direct result of political repression in Burma. Human rights abuses, war, and ethnic discrimination have displaced thousands of villagers, leaving families with no means of livelihood. An offer of employment in Thailand is a rare chance for many families to escape extreme poverty.
“Sacrifice” examines the social, cultural, and economic forces at work in the trafficking of Burmese girls into prostitution. It is the story of the valuation and sale of human beings, and the efforts of teenage girls to survive a crisis born of economic and political repression.”
The film will be introduced by Laurie Maund, and post-showing discussion will be led by Mrs. Lintner, Bertil Lintner’s wife, and a young woman who spent an hour talking with George Bush in the White House, both of whom are members of the Shan Women’s Action Network.
More information on the Informal Northern Thai Group is available from their website.
3 responses so far ↓
1 Anonymous Massage Parlour Patron // Jul 31, 2007 at 6:54 am
I read stuff like this and I’m left scratching my head. The glaring hardship described is quite different from my own experience with Burmees prostitutes.
I am a upper-middle class single Thai man in my late 20’s, and like most of my friends and professional colleagues, I regularly patronize massage parlours. I am a regular customer of “A” (not her real name), a “sideline” prostitute at one of the massage parlours on Ratchadapisek.
A is a Burmese from Rangoon. She is around 20 and was not coerced or trafficked into Thailand. She has worked as a prostitute in Bangkok for about 2 years and speaks good enough Thai to have a real conversation (although she does have a slight accent). She lives alone in a modest apartment, like many young Bangkokians people of her age. She is not held under debt bondage, and she has never been abused by the Cheer Khaek or Khun Mae’s (pimps and mamasans) of her establishment. Her income is typically X0,000 Baht a month, but can reach 1X0,000. That’s a lot of money for Thailand, and she saves most of it.
As a “sideline”, she is not forced to work on a fixed schedule or sit inside the “fishbowl”, but can come and wait for customers on the sofas whenever she wants. Half of her fee 2,500 Baht goes the the massage parlour, and she retains all of her tips. If she trusts a customer enough, she’ll meet him outside the massage parlour and not have to share anything with the pimp. She is extremely strict about using condoms, and the only unsafe thing she’s ever done with me is kiss me on the mouth. She can reject a customer, even after they have gone up into the room. She is, in fact, like any other attractive young Thai lady of modest means who chooses to become a prostitute. I have never seen, after visiting hundreds of girls in dozens of massage parlours, anybody younger than 18 or anybody who was visibly abused or coerced into having sex with me.
I do not know her visa status, but I know she does go back to Rangoon from time to time, travelling via Chiang Rai. Her family has a small shop in Rangoon. Her family is not poor, but neither is it rich. She plans to retire soon and use her savings to build a small business back home.
The only abuse she ever mentioned was getting arrested by a police officer while she was in a car with a bunch of her Burmese friends. The police officer demanded sex with her, but her Cheer Khaek later intervened and paid the officer a X0,000 Baht bribe. She paid the Cheer Khaek off within a few months.
I’m guess that there are worse examples of the Burmese-Thai sex trade. I don’t think activists like the Lintners are lying to the public. But I suspect that they might be exaggerating the seriousness of the situation, or painting it in overly broad brush-strokes.
2 jonfernquest // Jul 31, 2007 at 8:28 am
Ellen Bruno, the filmmaker, has some really good films. I saw her being interviewed on CNN several years ago about her film on Buddhist nuns. Actually went filming with her at the carnival in Maesai, long, long ago.
I wonder how she’s going to pull filming this off. Everyone knows about this problem. Take for instance, my mother-in-law who is a moral person and can see this stuff from the window in the back of her house. She always told me and my wife how the brothel owner would pretend they were one big happy family but when the girls got sick, back to Burma with them. This is a typical example of something that everyone knows about and can see in broad day light but can do nothing about because of the powerful mafia-like locals who control it. And I’d also like to point out that these exploitative brothels have a Thai clientele. At least the one near my mother-in-law’s house. Every book and article I’ve seen published on this topic tries to pin the problem on Farang. Carabao’s song Maesai made years ago is about this problem. Hope she can shine the light of day on it.
3 Mizzima on the film “Sacrifice” // Aug 18, 2007 at 12:03 am
[...] in July I briefly mentioned the film “Sacrifice”. It follows the lives of prostitutes from the Shan State in [...]
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