We need to keep kids out of the sex trade

If the Royal Thai Police don’t see the egg on their faces, the public ought to point it out. In the wake of an Interior Ministry raid last week on a Bangkok massage parlour whose ill repute appears to have proved warranted, police in other provinces conducted their own inspections of establishments offering massages and concluded there were no prostitutes in any of them.
In Thailand as in other countries, there are of course many massage parlours that are actually massage parlours, but for the most part these places are fronts for illicit sex, and everyone knows it. Here, suspicion is confirmed by the prices charged – Bt1,500 and up for perhaps a  two-hour massage and steam in surroundings that are hardly luxurious.
For all its red-light districts and international standing as a sex-tourism destination, Thailand still outlaws prostitution. Lax law enforcement and rampant corruption within officialdom allow the sex-for-money industry to flourish nevertheless. In the case of massage parlours, the pertinent law requires licences and proof that employees are at least 18 years old and – oddly for places where no sex is supposed to take place – that they are tested regularly for sexually transmitted diseases. The anti-prostitution law notwithstanding, health authorities routinely encourage acknowledged sex workers to use condoms as a shield against HIV infection. Thus the government tacitly admits to the existence of the sex industry.
In doing so it is at least nodding to the need for regulation, to protect public health if not morals. Many of the thousands of sex workers are employed at registered entertainment venues and massage parlours, but many thousands more are offering their services in illegal establishments, and this is where the problem of underage sex workers mainly arises.
To sate the appalling male appetite for sex with young girls, such places import desperately poor teenagers from neighbouring countries. They were the focus of last Wednesday’s Interior Ministry sting on the Nataree massage parlour on Ratchadaphisek Road. Migrant girls under 18 were working there as prostitutes. Almost as disturbing, records were found of bribes seemingly paid to police so that the Nataree could operate unimpeded by the law. Bribes were allegedly given to officers of the local police station in Huai Khwang, and to Special Branch, Patrol and Special Operation Division, Immigration Police and even the Tourist Police.
A 2012 United Nations survey of sex workers in 48 Asian countries drew the conclusion that decriminalising prostitution would be beneficial in terms of the workers’ rights, safety and health. The report noted that Thailand had undergone dramatic social and economic change since its Prostitution Prevention and Suppression Act came into effect in 1996. Sex work in Thailand, it said, had come to resemble any other occupation, from applying for a job to the working conditions and earning power.  “Old-style brothels have been replaced by modern entertainment venues and old-style pimps replaced by managers. The laws are outdated and irrelevant to the way sex workers work today.”
Chantawipa Apisuk, who established the Empower group that helps sex workers, agrees that Thai law fails to recognise how the industry has evolved.
Given the demand for paid sex and the extent of illegal prostitution in this country, and given the need to focus the law instead on keeping underage youths out of the business, it is time to reconsider decriminalising the trade. The Justice Ministry went as far as holding public meetings on the idea in 2003, hungrily mulling a tax on sex establishments, but nothing happened.
If popular sentiment remains opposed to legal prostitution, then there should at least be official recognition of sex workers so that they can be protected from abuse and exploitation. Existing legislation covering labour, social security and occupational health and safety could be amended to this effect. A properly administered system of registration would ensure that sex workers are of an appropriate age and doing so voluntarily.