How so? In which conditions?
If they’re being coerced then they’re going to be foreign, in a brothel (pretty unusual in itself), incommunicative etc etc.
Are you basing those figures on anything at all? I mean, do you actually have data to use to refute the estimates developed by the UN, the US State Department, the US DOJ, US DHS, or US ICE? Do you have any data that would serve to refute the hard figures of investigations, convictions and deportations in trafficking cases opened by the US FBI or US ICE? I ask because your guess of 1000 is less than the hard data and, unless US law enforcement has at 100% successful enforcement rate with regard to human trafficking, then the actual number of trafficked persons in the US must be considerably higher than that.
Why do you think that only foreign persons can be coerced? By what measures and logic do you define brothels as uncommon?
I have plenty of reason to doubt estimates, as they don’t seem to be based on anything sensible or they have a completely different definition of trafficking - or both.
I’m perfectly willing to accept the figure is slightly greater than 1000 though, they were just numbers I came up with.
I didn’t say only foreign persons can be coerced, but it pretty much has to be foreign people to be trafficking by any sane definition. And again most of this “coercion” is anything but.
Brothels are not uncommon, but they are a small part of the sex trade in developed countries.
So…your numbers weren’t based on anything sensible either?
What are your definitions of trafficking and coercion in the context of sex trade?
Based on what information do you assert that brothels represent a small part of the sex trade in the US? Is this another WAG? Do you actually have any real information from which you’ve developed your views, or are you simply hoping that asserting your position enough will bend reality to your will?
If I ask you to estimate the diameter of the moon, you’re not going to say it’s 18 inches or a million miles, are you?
Right but that’s because I have some concept of the moon. Do you have any concept of human trafficking? Is it something you’ve dealt with or seen or read about? Just being familiar with the fact that it exists doesn’t mean you can give estimates.
Incidentally did you mean it was more than 1,000 and less than 500,000?
A post I always wanted to pursue was when I made a comment on the exploitation of girls in the Bangkok brothels, and Siam Sam said that many of the women employed in them actually become furious at attempts to end prostitution and do not consider themselves exploited or victims. Would love to read more about what he has to say on the matter.
Trafficking = either through fraudulent misrepresentation, or outright kidnapping, taking women from one area to another (almost always one country to another) for the purposes of having them work as a prostitute. In the case of misrepresentation, once they are where you want them, essentially turning it into a kidnap. Crucially, they have to then be coereced…
Coerced = forcing the women to have sex with men, against their will. It isn’t coercion if the women can leave whenever they like and have the same rights as any other citizen/migrant/illegal immigrant.
You may as well ask me why I believe the average American prefers a hamburger to cabbage. I just know. Everyone who knows something about prostitution knows this.
No, I meant that the victims of trafficking were probably less than 1000, while the total number of sex workers in the US was something more than half a million.
I’ve never “dealt” with human trafficking*, but I have “dealt” with a lot of prostitution. Not just as a client - I’ve done voluntary work with drug addicted prostitutes as well. But none of them were trafficked or co-erced into the trade (violence from customers was an everyday issue though).
If you had some reason to reference the diameter of the moon, I’d provide you with relevant information that’s commonly available. If you were to then insist that the moon has a dimeter of 18 inches, I would ask you questions about that until the entertainment value of your naiveté wore thin.
You haven’t provided me with any information to back up your position that I accept.
Take a look at that link I provided. There is perfectly legit reason to doubt that data.
Or look here for example: SPECIAL INVESTIGATION: The myth of Britain's foreign sex slaves | Daily Mail Online
Indeed, that’s one thing, so it’s not such a “great gig” after all.
It’s kind of an open question. And it’s not like I haven’t written on it here before. I started a thread on the local informal prostitutes union, Empower, one time. They even have a branch office in the Patpong red-light district.
A big problem with the perception is people who have never been here tend to equate the scene with the sleazier aspects back home, say, in the ghetto, with crack whores waving down cars. Or they’ll believe the few reports of girls chained to their beds. Well, the girls who are chained to their beds are the ones servicing the bottom-of-the-rung locals, the $3-a-day or so manual laborers. The farang (Westerner) has no contact with that. I’ve certainly never seen it. What the farang (Westerner) sees is some pretty independent women. Only a small percentage of prostitutes here service farangs, and they tend to be higher paid than the others. As I’ve said numerous times, I personally know a few prostitutes from hanging out in the bars. They’re very nice to chat with, and once they understand you’re really not going to go with them, they drop the “Hello, handsome man” schtick and are quite open about themelves. I like talking to them, but I’d never want to get emotionally involved with one. They love guys who feel they’re going to “take them away from all of this,” those are prime targets.
Another problem is defining the prostitute. There are so many part-timers out there! The 7-Eleven girl who just sold you your can of Pepsi might be hanging out on lower Sukhumvit Road late at night after her shift. For some reason, there seem to be a lot of hairdressers working the street and freelance joints part-time. University students even. Of course, the vast majority of university students, 7-Eleven clerks etc are not part-time prostitutes, but “regular girls” do make up a lot of the non-bar, non-massage-parlor trade, especially toward the end of the month when the rent is due. It’s common knowledge what to do to pick up some spare cash.
From my personal experience, the girls who do work in the bars find it an addictive occupation. The ones who are not good at it tend to drop out of the trade, but the ones who are good find they like the money. And they tend to squander it. A common line is they have to send money to their family back home, but in reality I believe very little of the money actually gets there. Some does, but most of it is squandered away in all-night card games and designer clothes and such. Not so much drugs though, because the druggies tend to burn out quickly. And even many of the girls who do work in the bar enter and exit, although if they’re any good at what they do, they tend to get addicted to the money and stay. It’s a running joke here that the bars seem to have fewer girls come harvest time upcountry, but there really is some truth to that.
And of course, there’s the legendary “girlfriend experience.” It’s not uncommon for visitors to take a girl with them upcountry. Besides her fee, he simply has to “pay bar” to her business establishment, which can be anywhere from 400-600 baht (US$12.50 to $18.50) per day, supposedly to compensate the bar for the loss of business that will result in her being gone. (The owners claim the fewer girls on premises, the less atmosphere to attract drinkers.) Then it’s just like going to a beach resort with your girlfriend. You compensate her some more at the end of the trip. she’s had a nice holiday. Extra points if you’re not a fat, 70-year-old German. (Many newbies are surprised at how many good-looking young farang men are also going with the prostitutes.)
No one knows how many prostitutes there are, since the line is often so blurred. I’ve mentioned before, too, that the wife is a statistician and works for the government. Her office tried to come up with a definitive number maybe 20 years ago. I think they came up with 200,000, but she freely admits that’s almost certainly wrong. And of course, that would be out of date now anyway.
Then there’s the opposite problem of farangs fresh off the boat seeing another farang with his legitimate girlfriend or wife and assuming it’s a prostitute situation, especially if there is an obvious age difference. And I’ve known many successful May-December marriages here. The more successful ones tend to be where the man’s eyes are wide open to it being more economic security for her and companionship for him than anything else. In fact, there was a long period when farangs of any age seemed to be sought after as husband material by many regular girls, the perception being that we actually did not beat our wives. I’m afraid the farang-tourist invasion of the past 10 or 20 years made us less popular. Then Japanese became the flavor of the day. Nowadays, Koreans seem to be most sought after.
I don’t know if any of that answers what you were looking for. Probably there’s nothing there I haven’t already written elsewhere. It’s so hard to describe the situation to someone not familiar with it. And it’s very easy to overgeneralize. I’ve known many prostitutes in the bars, and in my salad days went with quite a few, and I know what the “girlfriend experience” is like. Personally, I don’t view them with any shame, nor do I equate them with the crack whores in the West flagging down cars.
A great book I finally got around to reading recently is Private Dancer, by local author Stephen Leather. For many years, it was available only online as a free download and became wildly popular among the expat community. Now you can buy it in the store, but an earlier version is still available for download for free here. I have to say Leather has nailed the scene, and I agree with those who say this book ought to be handed out to every farang fresh off the boat. Unfortunately, the download does not include the wonderful little Epilogue listing what becomes of the characters in later years.
That wasn’t my point. The point is that CATW are actually a group of prostitution opponents who’ve seized on the trafficking issue as a means of furthering a prohibitionist anti-prostitution agenda. All of their “solutions” to the problem of sex trafficking are measures aimed at eliminating prostitution. Every one of them.
By contrast there are groups such as the Global Alliance Against Trafficking in Women (note that they also have the “W” word in their name) who focus much more on issues such as migration for the purpose of labour - since victims of both sex trafficking and non-sex trafficking often start off as voluntary labour migrants - and their solutions are grounded in a workers’ rights framework.
Can porn actors be sexually harrassed? How can one file a complaint about being told they have to fuck the director to get a job, when the job is fucking? How can someone complain about an uncomfortable environment due to sex-related comments or actions, when the environment is a fuck-pad for strangers?
I just went and read “Private Dancer” online last night, that was a really good book Siam Sam, thanks. Very entertaining and educational.
It would seem a fair bit of the advice to be gleaned from that could be applied to any relationship not just one with a sex worker.