C
chrissie
Not really sure where to post this, but I wanted to share it.
I was a WA delegate to the Scarlet Alliance AGM in November just gone, and one of the highlights of that was meeting some of the people from Empower, which is an organisation that works with and for sex workers in Thailand. Scarlet just received this update on the situation there post-tsunami, and it's god-awful. SWOP is looking for fund-raising ideas so that we can help Empower help the survivors and the families of those who didn't survive to achieve closure - all input is welcome.
Empower: Update # 2 Situation of Sex Workers in South Thailand
18th January 2005
The Lost
Our current estimate is over 2,000 sex workers who were killed in Thailand on the 26th December 2004. More than 2,000 families lost a daughter, a sister, a mother, and their provider when the tsunami struck the South of Thailand. Two thousand friends are gone.
However estimates are not enough, every family, every friend, our whole community needs to know for sure "Is she really dead?"
"I know four women who arrived a couple of days before from the city of Korat, (in the north east of Thailand). They didn't have a room and were sleeping in the bar. The bar was ruined in the tsunami and we haven't seen those women since, we believe they were taken by the water. We don't know if we told their families where they were or not. We don't know their names or their addresses so we can't contact the family or even register them as missing."
"There were about fifty brothels in this area, small shantytown type shacks. Each brothel had at least ten workers who lived and worked in the brothels. Everyone was sleeping when the tsunami hit. There are no women or brothels left. All the women were from Burma. How will families ever know for certain where their daughters went?"
"I was on the beach massaging a customer when the tide went out really fast. I saw my work-mates and many other people running down, laughing and picking up the fish and prawns left stranded on the sand. Then the huge wave came I ran away and I haven't seen the others since."
"We know nothing yet about people on Krabi and many smaller islands including sex workers there. They are still out of bounds to all but government officials and only can be reached by helicopter."
"Lots of us bar workers rent rooms in the same building. It's away from the beach so was not damaged. But many women didn't come back after the tsunami yet. Maybe they went with customers and were in the bungalows...we don't know what has happened to them. Their things are in their rooms and the landlord doesn't know what to do either. "
" She always left her little boy at a nursery overnight while she worked and would come and get him in the late morning. She never came to get him after the tsunami, she would never leave him if she were alive so we believe she is dead"
"By law bars need a license to open. How can I go and report I have lost three workers when my business and their work is illegal?"
We know answering the question "Is she really dead?" is something that we need to do for each other, for those who died and for the loved ones left wondering.
Empower is working in the areas with sex workers, bar owners, brothel owners, tuk tuk drivers, customers, landlords and other members in the sex worker community to begin to create a way to find the answer for all those affected. It will be a slow, sad process that will need a lot of human resources.
What's Needed
Empower heard the same thing again and again in all the areas affected.
" We want to get back to work, that is the most important thing now. If we have work we can do everything for ourselves"
Women doing sex work here are fiercely independent and dedicated providers for their families.
"We have never had acceptance or help from society or the government so we do not look for it now. If we can get back to work we will help ourselves, our families and each other"
Thousands of other workers have also been affected but unlike entertainment workers many other occupations are protected under labor laws and the government social security scheme for access to assistance such as sickness benefits, unemployment benefits and disability allowances. Prior to the tsunami other migrant workers had the opportunity to register as workers and be protected under labor laws and secure from deportation. Despite our huge economic contributions to Thailand, entertainment workers have long been denied the recognition of our work as work under labor laws, and therefore denied access to social security benefits or migrant worker status.
Many sex workers cannot pay into the public social security or health schemes but we pay taxes on all the goods we buy and most pay some form of unofficial "tax' as part of our work.
"We pay 100 Baht every day to be able to give massages on the beach"
"Every woman here (Ranong) paid immigration and police 200 Baht every month. Will police or immigration look after us now?"
Last night, January 17th, we got news that a sex worker in Phuket committed suicide. In our 20 years of history in the sex worker community Empower has often noted that suicide among sex workers here is extremely rare. We don't underestimate the level of her desperation and sense of hopelessness. We know she was left unemployed by the tsunami, had no money to send to her children and was unable to make a 500 Baht payment on her loan that day. Social security would have provided her with 50% of her salary for a period of six months. Perhaps that would have given her the hope she needed, we will never know.
Recognition of sex work as work would never have prevented the tsunami but it would give us the same chance of survival that many others now have.
The provinces are major tourist destinations which receive nearly six million foreign tourists a year, half the national total. Phuket alone normally receives about 1.5 million tourists during the holiday season from November to February. The tourism business generates about 100 billion baht in foreign exchange in these areas. Tourists come to visit the natural beauty of the islands, relax in luxurious resorts and also to be entertained by sex workers employed in hotels, bars and massage parlors. Local and migrant sex workers have long been part of the attraction of these provinces and have generated billions of Baht for Thailand.
"I heard the (Thai) government is offering 2,000 Baht compensation for each person affected by the tsunami. But for women like us, who have no proof we work and come from other provinces, it would be impossible to get this compensation and it would be a huge hassle to even try. If I can work I don't need it, it can be used for those who really need it."
As Pi Noi Empower put it " Living people need some ways to bring back their lives. They wanted houses, boats, fishery tools, job, materials and equipment for earning income. Fishermen need boats, vendors need stalls, dancers need music, house keepers need hotel room, service workers need restaurants, taxi drivers need cars, massagers wanted to return to the mats on the beaches."
However finding work is proving difficult. Entertainment places in all the areas are mainly still closed. Bars are beginning to reopen the main tourist strip near Patong Beach Phuket, but there are very few customers. Some workers are committed to waiting it out and staying and some are beginning to talk about moving to find work in other places.
Usually we ask our friends whom we trust when we think about moving. We usually have the luxury of time to think about it and make plans. The situation now is different in that women will need to make decisions in a hurry. Empower is exploring ways to collect information about living and working in other areas, and how to give sex workers easy access to the information. Our experience tells us that communication within our sex worker community is best in delivered in person via the sex worker grapevine and backed up by distributing brochures with clear useful facts. Once again this will be a lengthy process.
Trafficking and Tsunami
We have been very disappointed and alarmed to see the ongoing rhetoric about "traffickers and the tsunami". Prior to the tsunami in Asia we were already being flooded with misleading information about trafficking and harmful anti-trafficking responses.
An International NGO working in the affected provinces that had previously adopted an anti-trafficking focus and actively participated in the recommended US practice of "raid and rescues" is now experiencing extreme difficulties. Their main focus is offering health services to documented and undocumented migrants from Burma, including working with undocumented migrant sex workers. We contacted them to ask about the situation of sex workers in one of the effected areas. Unfortunately they had previously participated in a "raid and rescue" in a brothel the area and as a consequence had been unable to return since. Not only had sex workers been without regular services for 3 months, also in this time of crisis the only International NGO in the area was unable to act. In another area, employers detained and abused the staff of the NGO before handing them over to the police. Later another 3 of the NGO workers were severely beaten by gangs related to employers. Empower rejects the misuse of power by authorities and violence in any form. Relationships prior to the tsunami were unworkable and the crisis exacerbated pre-existing tensions causing more neglect and distress to the migrants.
Empower wants to reinforce the need for those working with migrant populations to establish work practices that don't create situations where migrants are isolated from the services they need. We want to emphasize that groups working with marginalized populations like sex workers or other migrant workers need to have strong roots in those communities to be able to make sound judgements about actions and possible consequences.
Sex workers and all other people affected by the tsunami in Thailand have said very clearly that their priority is to get back to work.
Of course anyone coming into these areas and offering a chance to make money is going to find many takers. We would all have to take the chance. The only thing that may be useful to would be having access to information and ways to check out job offers, some emergency relocation assistance and an immediate amnesty on undocumented migrants in the areas. in reality this would be hard enough to implement for accepted occupations like builder's laborers and domestic work.
In order for sex workers to have access to this kind of service it would mean that there would have to be recognition that sex work is work and that migrating to do sex work in is a legitimate option that should be supported with work cards, visas etc.
Unfortunately, it has been clear to Empower that much of the anti-trafficking focus is aimed at abolishing the sex industry. On the ground here in Thailand there has been a lack of concern for people trafficked into domestic work, seafarers, and factories. There has also been a lack of concern for the rights of migrant sex workers. We don't hold any hope that post tsunami the focus will shift to address the real needs of those people vulnerable to being trafficked.
In terms of sex workers, the most needed action to prevent trafficking is to acknowledge sex work as work and therefore enable sex workers to migrate legally, independently and safely. We fear instead we will see that our access to independent migration and access to safe fair work made even more difficult.
At the moment for most migrant sex workers from Burma in the South of Thailand, who survived, may well see it as case of being "offered an opportunity" rather than being "trafficked".
Even in those areas where entertainment places were not directly affected by the tsunami itself, working has become impossible. In many of the affected areas most of the customers of migrant sex workers were other migrant workers e.g. construction site workers, seafarers. Many of these men were also lost in the tsunami and most of those who survived have since been arrested or are in hiding from arrest.
"There used to be 30,000 registered migrant workers in the affected provinces but according to government officials there are only 3,000 migrants left now and 1,900 have been "assisted" home by the authorities. "
MAP and HREIB
Many foreign citizens were affected by the tsunami and their governments were quick to establish a presence in the areas and assist their citizens, both living and the dead. The Burmese government in stark contrast has said and done nothing for the tens of thousands of its citizens hit by the tsunami. Calls to the Burmese Embassy in Bangkok have gone unanswered since the tsunami hit on the 26th December. The people from Burma can expect no help from their government.
The Thai government who is struggling to manage to care for the paying tourists and it's own nationals is offering very little.
"The authorities say they will only arrest those migrants who do not have work permits. How many people managed to hold onto their ID in the tsunami? How many of the migrants being held in the Immigration Detention Center had spent precious time and money registering for a temporary ID card last July and then again for a work permit in August, but lost them to the sea. The employment offices say they will re-issue work permits to migrants who can get to their office and give the correct details of their previous registration. But how will the migrants know that? And if they do know it, how can they get to the employment office without being arrested on the way?
If migrant workers want to stay and work, they are liable to arrest and deportation by the immigration. If they want to go home to recuperate, they are liable to coercion and violence by the employers to make them stay.
As with everyone else who survived the tsunami, they are dealing with their own nightmares, haunted by the images of the bodies of their dead friends who they did not dare to go and identify for fear of being arrested. Now they dare not go to the food distribution points. So the migrants have to live in hiding, continually on the move. In response to charges that migrants from Burma were looting, if they are scavenging for pieces of broken down homes to make shelters and for food, it is because, having already survived a military dictatorship and a tsunami, they must be able to survive this. "
from HREIB and MAP Foundation 12th January 2005
Conclusion
We have tried to give a sense of what the situation is like and how it is still it is difficult for all of us to see how best to proceed. Please feel free to contact us with ideas, comments or suggestions. You can also pass this second update along to wherever you think it may be useful.
"To make a difference....we will have to do impossible things and think impossible thoughts, and that is only done in a community. Without a sense of community, an individual can not hold of her radical insights, she becomes confused, she forgets what she knew... We call on each other to create acts of courage and imagination, but they are literally impossible without a community which recognizes and authorizes each others initiatives. "
The Power We Have
The Power We Share
Thanks
Empower
Thailand
I was a WA delegate to the Scarlet Alliance AGM in November just gone, and one of the highlights of that was meeting some of the people from Empower, which is an organisation that works with and for sex workers in Thailand. Scarlet just received this update on the situation there post-tsunami, and it's god-awful. SWOP is looking for fund-raising ideas so that we can help Empower help the survivors and the families of those who didn't survive to achieve closure - all input is welcome.
Empower: Update # 2 Situation of Sex Workers in South Thailand
18th January 2005
The Lost
Our current estimate is over 2,000 sex workers who were killed in Thailand on the 26th December 2004. More than 2,000 families lost a daughter, a sister, a mother, and their provider when the tsunami struck the South of Thailand. Two thousand friends are gone.
However estimates are not enough, every family, every friend, our whole community needs to know for sure "Is she really dead?"
"I know four women who arrived a couple of days before from the city of Korat, (in the north east of Thailand). They didn't have a room and were sleeping in the bar. The bar was ruined in the tsunami and we haven't seen those women since, we believe they were taken by the water. We don't know if we told their families where they were or not. We don't know their names or their addresses so we can't contact the family or even register them as missing."
"There were about fifty brothels in this area, small shantytown type shacks. Each brothel had at least ten workers who lived and worked in the brothels. Everyone was sleeping when the tsunami hit. There are no women or brothels left. All the women were from Burma. How will families ever know for certain where their daughters went?"
"I was on the beach massaging a customer when the tide went out really fast. I saw my work-mates and many other people running down, laughing and picking up the fish and prawns left stranded on the sand. Then the huge wave came I ran away and I haven't seen the others since."
"We know nothing yet about people on Krabi and many smaller islands including sex workers there. They are still out of bounds to all but government officials and only can be reached by helicopter."
"Lots of us bar workers rent rooms in the same building. It's away from the beach so was not damaged. But many women didn't come back after the tsunami yet. Maybe they went with customers and were in the bungalows...we don't know what has happened to them. Their things are in their rooms and the landlord doesn't know what to do either. "
" She always left her little boy at a nursery overnight while she worked and would come and get him in the late morning. She never came to get him after the tsunami, she would never leave him if she were alive so we believe she is dead"
"By law bars need a license to open. How can I go and report I have lost three workers when my business and their work is illegal?"
We know answering the question "Is she really dead?" is something that we need to do for each other, for those who died and for the loved ones left wondering.
Empower is working in the areas with sex workers, bar owners, brothel owners, tuk tuk drivers, customers, landlords and other members in the sex worker community to begin to create a way to find the answer for all those affected. It will be a slow, sad process that will need a lot of human resources.
What's Needed
Empower heard the same thing again and again in all the areas affected.
" We want to get back to work, that is the most important thing now. If we have work we can do everything for ourselves"
Women doing sex work here are fiercely independent and dedicated providers for their families.
"We have never had acceptance or help from society or the government so we do not look for it now. If we can get back to work we will help ourselves, our families and each other"
Thousands of other workers have also been affected but unlike entertainment workers many other occupations are protected under labor laws and the government social security scheme for access to assistance such as sickness benefits, unemployment benefits and disability allowances. Prior to the tsunami other migrant workers had the opportunity to register as workers and be protected under labor laws and secure from deportation. Despite our huge economic contributions to Thailand, entertainment workers have long been denied the recognition of our work as work under labor laws, and therefore denied access to social security benefits or migrant worker status.
Many sex workers cannot pay into the public social security or health schemes but we pay taxes on all the goods we buy and most pay some form of unofficial "tax' as part of our work.
"We pay 100 Baht every day to be able to give massages on the beach"
"Every woman here (Ranong) paid immigration and police 200 Baht every month. Will police or immigration look after us now?"
Last night, January 17th, we got news that a sex worker in Phuket committed suicide. In our 20 years of history in the sex worker community Empower has often noted that suicide among sex workers here is extremely rare. We don't underestimate the level of her desperation and sense of hopelessness. We know she was left unemployed by the tsunami, had no money to send to her children and was unable to make a 500 Baht payment on her loan that day. Social security would have provided her with 50% of her salary for a period of six months. Perhaps that would have given her the hope she needed, we will never know.
Recognition of sex work as work would never have prevented the tsunami but it would give us the same chance of survival that many others now have.
The provinces are major tourist destinations which receive nearly six million foreign tourists a year, half the national total. Phuket alone normally receives about 1.5 million tourists during the holiday season from November to February. The tourism business generates about 100 billion baht in foreign exchange in these areas. Tourists come to visit the natural beauty of the islands, relax in luxurious resorts and also to be entertained by sex workers employed in hotels, bars and massage parlors. Local and migrant sex workers have long been part of the attraction of these provinces and have generated billions of Baht for Thailand.
"I heard the (Thai) government is offering 2,000 Baht compensation for each person affected by the tsunami. But for women like us, who have no proof we work and come from other provinces, it would be impossible to get this compensation and it would be a huge hassle to even try. If I can work I don't need it, it can be used for those who really need it."
As Pi Noi Empower put it " Living people need some ways to bring back their lives. They wanted houses, boats, fishery tools, job, materials and equipment for earning income. Fishermen need boats, vendors need stalls, dancers need music, house keepers need hotel room, service workers need restaurants, taxi drivers need cars, massagers wanted to return to the mats on the beaches."
However finding work is proving difficult. Entertainment places in all the areas are mainly still closed. Bars are beginning to reopen the main tourist strip near Patong Beach Phuket, but there are very few customers. Some workers are committed to waiting it out and staying and some are beginning to talk about moving to find work in other places.
Usually we ask our friends whom we trust when we think about moving. We usually have the luxury of time to think about it and make plans. The situation now is different in that women will need to make decisions in a hurry. Empower is exploring ways to collect information about living and working in other areas, and how to give sex workers easy access to the information. Our experience tells us that communication within our sex worker community is best in delivered in person via the sex worker grapevine and backed up by distributing brochures with clear useful facts. Once again this will be a lengthy process.
Trafficking and Tsunami
We have been very disappointed and alarmed to see the ongoing rhetoric about "traffickers and the tsunami". Prior to the tsunami in Asia we were already being flooded with misleading information about trafficking and harmful anti-trafficking responses.
An International NGO working in the affected provinces that had previously adopted an anti-trafficking focus and actively participated in the recommended US practice of "raid and rescues" is now experiencing extreme difficulties. Their main focus is offering health services to documented and undocumented migrants from Burma, including working with undocumented migrant sex workers. We contacted them to ask about the situation of sex workers in one of the effected areas. Unfortunately they had previously participated in a "raid and rescue" in a brothel the area and as a consequence had been unable to return since. Not only had sex workers been without regular services for 3 months, also in this time of crisis the only International NGO in the area was unable to act. In another area, employers detained and abused the staff of the NGO before handing them over to the police. Later another 3 of the NGO workers were severely beaten by gangs related to employers. Empower rejects the misuse of power by authorities and violence in any form. Relationships prior to the tsunami were unworkable and the crisis exacerbated pre-existing tensions causing more neglect and distress to the migrants.
Empower wants to reinforce the need for those working with migrant populations to establish work practices that don't create situations where migrants are isolated from the services they need. We want to emphasize that groups working with marginalized populations like sex workers or other migrant workers need to have strong roots in those communities to be able to make sound judgements about actions and possible consequences.
Sex workers and all other people affected by the tsunami in Thailand have said very clearly that their priority is to get back to work.
Of course anyone coming into these areas and offering a chance to make money is going to find many takers. We would all have to take the chance. The only thing that may be useful to would be having access to information and ways to check out job offers, some emergency relocation assistance and an immediate amnesty on undocumented migrants in the areas. in reality this would be hard enough to implement for accepted occupations like builder's laborers and domestic work.
In order for sex workers to have access to this kind of service it would mean that there would have to be recognition that sex work is work and that migrating to do sex work in is a legitimate option that should be supported with work cards, visas etc.
Unfortunately, it has been clear to Empower that much of the anti-trafficking focus is aimed at abolishing the sex industry. On the ground here in Thailand there has been a lack of concern for people trafficked into domestic work, seafarers, and factories. There has also been a lack of concern for the rights of migrant sex workers. We don't hold any hope that post tsunami the focus will shift to address the real needs of those people vulnerable to being trafficked.
In terms of sex workers, the most needed action to prevent trafficking is to acknowledge sex work as work and therefore enable sex workers to migrate legally, independently and safely. We fear instead we will see that our access to independent migration and access to safe fair work made even more difficult.
At the moment for most migrant sex workers from Burma in the South of Thailand, who survived, may well see it as case of being "offered an opportunity" rather than being "trafficked".
Even in those areas where entertainment places were not directly affected by the tsunami itself, working has become impossible. In many of the affected areas most of the customers of migrant sex workers were other migrant workers e.g. construction site workers, seafarers. Many of these men were also lost in the tsunami and most of those who survived have since been arrested or are in hiding from arrest.
"There used to be 30,000 registered migrant workers in the affected provinces but according to government officials there are only 3,000 migrants left now and 1,900 have been "assisted" home by the authorities. "
MAP and HREIB
Many foreign citizens were affected by the tsunami and their governments were quick to establish a presence in the areas and assist their citizens, both living and the dead. The Burmese government in stark contrast has said and done nothing for the tens of thousands of its citizens hit by the tsunami. Calls to the Burmese Embassy in Bangkok have gone unanswered since the tsunami hit on the 26th December. The people from Burma can expect no help from their government.
The Thai government who is struggling to manage to care for the paying tourists and it's own nationals is offering very little.
"The authorities say they will only arrest those migrants who do not have work permits. How many people managed to hold onto their ID in the tsunami? How many of the migrants being held in the Immigration Detention Center had spent precious time and money registering for a temporary ID card last July and then again for a work permit in August, but lost them to the sea. The employment offices say they will re-issue work permits to migrants who can get to their office and give the correct details of their previous registration. But how will the migrants know that? And if they do know it, how can they get to the employment office without being arrested on the way?
If migrant workers want to stay and work, they are liable to arrest and deportation by the immigration. If they want to go home to recuperate, they are liable to coercion and violence by the employers to make them stay.
As with everyone else who survived the tsunami, they are dealing with their own nightmares, haunted by the images of the bodies of their dead friends who they did not dare to go and identify for fear of being arrested. Now they dare not go to the food distribution points. So the migrants have to live in hiding, continually on the move. In response to charges that migrants from Burma were looting, if they are scavenging for pieces of broken down homes to make shelters and for food, it is because, having already survived a military dictatorship and a tsunami, they must be able to survive this. "
from HREIB and MAP Foundation 12th January 2005
Conclusion
We have tried to give a sense of what the situation is like and how it is still it is difficult for all of us to see how best to proceed. Please feel free to contact us with ideas, comments or suggestions. You can also pass this second update along to wherever you think it may be useful.
"To make a difference....we will have to do impossible things and think impossible thoughts, and that is only done in a community. Without a sense of community, an individual can not hold of her radical insights, she becomes confused, she forgets what she knew... We call on each other to create acts of courage and imagination, but they are literally impossible without a community which recognizes and authorizes each others initiatives. "
The Power We Have
The Power We Share
Thanks
Empower
Thailand
