Turning a Blind Eye: How Authorities and the Public Darken the Shadow

I have been writing a few articles for a professor for a Southeast Asian magazine.  While I promise to share those publications soon, I wrote the following as a first draft, however, it was deemed too controversial.  Nevertheless, I learned an awful lot about prostitution and sex tourism in Southeast Asia…and wanted to share:

Turning a Blind Eye: How Authorities and the Public Darken the Shadow

Tourists in downtown Bangkok partaking in sex tourism

Through active denial, ignorance and participation, authorities and the public have furthered the presence and ensured the prevalence of illicit activities within Southeast Asia.  One of the most poignant examples of this sponsorship is the prevalence of prostitution in Southeast Asia.

Sex tourism overtly draws foreigners to the region and one report estimates that 4.6 million Thai men regularly, and 500,000 foreign tourists annually use prostituted women (Hughes, Sporcic, Mendelsohn & Chirgwin, 1999).  The largest sex industry market for Asian women however is in Japan, where over 150,000 non-Japanese women are in prostitution: more than half Filipinas and forty-percent Thai women (Hughes, et al., 1999).  Japanese men also constitute the largest number of sex tourists in Asia. The sex industry in Japan accounts for 1 percent of GNP and is equal to the defense budget (Hughes et al., 1999).  Furthermore, child prostitution is a serious issue where one-third of the total sex industry in the Greater Mekong Sub-region is comprised of minors between the ages of 12 and 17 years old (IRIN, 2009).

The legality of prostitution varies in each country and while most countries such as Thailand, the Philippines, Cambodia and Malaysia have rules and regulations making the act illegal, other countries within the region do not specifically address the legal issue, such as Indonesia.  Singapore has actually made prostitution and brothel ownership legal, abiding mandatory health checks and minimum age requirements (ProCon.Org, 2009).  However, what is presented in the law and what occurs in practice are often two very different things.

One-third of the total sex industry in Southeast Asia is minors aged 12-17 years old

One International Labour Organisation (ILO) report, which outlined the sex sector in four Southeast Asian countries; Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand, concluded that prostitution accounted between 2 to 14 percent of GDP, with unaccounted larger revenues being collected by government authorities illegally in the form of bribes and corruption, and legally from licensing fees and taxes on many of the hotels, bars, restaurants and game rooms where the industry is often housed (ILO, 1998).  In Jakarta, Indonesia alone for example, there is an estimated annual turnover of $91 million USD from activities related to the sale of sex (ILO, 1998).

Given these profits, it is foreseeable how some might turn a blind eye to the issue, failing to report incidents or practices of prostitution due to the large sums of money it can bring.  Corruption, bribery and massive profits keep the industry alive – estimated to account for 3 percent of Thailand’s economy, equivalent to about $4.3 billion USD per year (ProCon.Org, 2009).

Turning a blind eye towards prostitution in Thailand is an entrenched practice, as indicated by the present industry’s booming success today.  Although prostitution has been illegal in the country since 1928, with further laws clarifying and strengthening the illegal practice in 1960, Thailand remains one of the world’s largest markets for sex tourism.  Chuwit Kamolvisit, the owner of several massage parlors in Bangkok and considered by many "a godfather of prostitution" in Thailand, revealed in 2003 that some of his best clients were senior politicians and police officers, whom he also claimed to have paid, over a decade, more than £1.5m in bribes so that his business, selling sex, could thrive (BBC News, 2003a; Scott-Clark & Levy, 2004).

Typical customers of Thailand's sex tourism

Support of prostitution is pervasive in political circles, clouting the industry with further corruption and bribes.  In 2003, Thailand’s ruling Thai Rak Thai Party, under the leadership of Prime Minister Thaksin were upset over party plans to ban members of parliament from having mistresses or visiting brothels.  One MP told The Nation that if the rules were enforced, the party would only be able to field around 30 candidates, compared to its more than 200 sitting MPs" (BBC News, 2003b).  Both politicians and police have been supporting and indulging in the prostitution industry openly.  Khun Tavich, a veteran politician aged 76, was under fire in 2005 for impregnating a 14-year-old girl who worked across the street from the parliament.  After a police raid on some of Bangkok’s parlors, in which policemen had sex with prostitutes, acting Suthisan Police chief Colonel Varanvas Karunyathat defended the police action, saying that the (police) officers involved “needed to have sex with the masseuses to gain evidence for the arrest" (Associated Press, 2009).  Similar practices by separate police forces were reported in Pattaya in May 2007 (Pattaya News, 2007).

While prostitution may in theory be illegal, in practice it feels promoted, as witnessed while walking down the colorful Soi Cowboy in the Nana area of Bangkok.  So how is it, that a practice that includes human trafficking, the abuse of children and minors, and illegal activity, is so widely promoted within Thailand?  Simply put - society accepts prostitution.  Attitudes towards women and prostitution were exemplified by MP Thirachai Sirikhan, who informed The Nation that, "To have a mia noi (mistress) is an individual's right. There should be no problem as long as the politician causes no trouble to his family or society" (BBC News, 2003b).  Kritaya Archavanitkul, a Thai human rights activist, interviewed by UC Berkeley Institute of International Studies, said,

“Thai social structure tends to accept this sort of abuse, and not only to accept – we have laws, we have bills that vitally support the existence of these sex establishments…we have a Mafia that is also involved in the political parties, so this keeps the abuse going. The second reason is a cultural factor… in Thailand the sexual behaviour of Thai men accepts prostitution.  Every class of Thai men accept it, although not all Thai men practise it…Because of the profit, I think there are many people with an interest involved, so they try to turn a blind eye to this problem.”

Prostitution in Thailand has come to not only be tolerated, but accepted and promoted as a tourist attraction in addition to the common societal practice.    Yet prostitution is only one example of the many illegal informal economies within Southeast Asia where a blind eye is turned; where instances of violence, environmental damage, violation of persons and species abound and are ignored for the benefit of large profit.

Eight year old Pet is a champion Muay Thai fighter in Thailand - one of over 30,000 child fighters

 BUFFALO GIRLS: 

“I want to win a lot of money to make Mom and Dad happy.  I am very poor.”

-        Pet, 8-year old female child boxer

Buffalo Girls is a 2012 documentary that follows the story of two eight-year-old Thai female boxers as they fight underground for their country’s national Muay Thai championship, a prize that could change their families’ lives forever.

The documentary states that there are 30,000 child boxers in Thailand, who, with their tiny fists, fight for prize money to offer their impoverished families a better life.

The documentary seeks to evoke emotion from its viewer and beckons judgment, questioning whether the new underground sport is exploitation, empowerment or economic necessity?