Narrative: Siri – A Prostitute in Thailand
Prepared by Nolan McPeek-Bechtold
Meet Siri, a fifteen year old girl living and working as sex slave in a brothel in the northeastern city of Ubon Ratchitani in Thailand. Her story is simple and her future is dark. In Kevin Bales’ book Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy, Bales describes the situation that Siri, and 35,000 other sex slaves in Thailand face. Siri is one of twenty five women who live and work in the brothel. Each night they have sex with eighteen to twenty men and during the day they eat, relax and prepare for the night’s work. Last year Siri’s parents sold her into slavery for 50,000 baht ($2,000), more than a year’s income for her family. Before she became a slave Siri went to school for four years and took care of her three younger brothers and sisters. Her parents knew the type of work their daughter would be doing, but they decided the money justified the abuse their daughter would experience. After being bought for 50,000 baht, Siri was resold for 100,000 baht ($4,000) to a brothel. The 100,000 baht is the debt Siri must “work off” before she can potentially leave. Her chances of repaying the debt are close to zero since she is paid only 100 baht per customer and her rent is about 30,000 baht a month. If she is submissive though, she might be granted freedom and the ability to send money home. After a year Siri is losing the will to live. This is the saddest state a prostitute can be in. One can only hope that she has found some level of freedom. Although her future is unknown, this is the story of Siri’s life as a prostitute.
Physical abuse is one of the key tools of control and manipulation employed by the pimps, the chief disciplinarians for the girls and women. The beating and rape began almost immediately after Siri found out that she was a prostitute. She immediately ran away but, “on the street with no money she was quickly caught, dragged back, beaten and raped” (Bales 36). Once Siri was returned to the pimp, she was forced to take an increased number of clients. This pattern of rape and extra work continued until her will to fight no longer existed. She is still beaten often by policemen and her pimp, “for he can harm [her] or use [her] as he pleases” (Bales 35). After a year of abuse she has learned how to avoid being beaten and raped. In doing this she has surrendered to the system and given up her identity. The main systems involved are the law enforcement system and the brothel or prostitution system. Prostitution is illegal in Thailand, and yet many police officers benefit from it. If the police were to enforce the law and live honestly, many young women would be freed from a seemingly eternal life of perpetual abuse. The prostitution system itself is thriving in the lawless and corrupt environment. There is little chance that the brothels themselves will change without being forced but, international pressure may yield a more honest law enforcement group.
One of Siri’s largest concerns is that she may contract HIV from one of her clients. Even though the Thai Ministry of Health distributes free condoms to the brothels, some of Siri’s clients refuse to wear them and she has no power to force them to. The pimp however, does support the use of condoms, “but when policemen use her, or the pimp himself, they will do as they please; if she tries to insist, she will be beaten and raped” (Bales 36). It is only a matter of time until her monthly HIV test (which she pays for) returns a positive result and she will be ejected from the brothel and die on the street. The systems involved in the Siri’s experience with HIV are the Health Organization, the Thai Ministry of Health, and her brothel. The Health Organization is responsible for accurate assessments of the HIV spread in Thailand. This information is helpful in demonstrating the importance of the problem and hopefully inspiring a response. The Thai Ministry of Health’s distribution of condoms is significant because it is government recognition of the prostitutes and an attempt to help slow the spread of HIV. Now it must take one more step and close some brothels. Siri’s brothel as a system, works to prevent her from contracting HIV, even though its motives are purely for profit. To the brothel the women are nothing more than perishable items that it wants to preserve.
The final stage for Siri is the loss of the will to resist. With the endless beatings, rapes and “customers” it did not take long for Siri to become completely submissive and accept her fate. “Now she is sure that she is a bad person, very bad to have deserved was has happened to her” (Bales 36). Although she is brutally beaten often, it is the psychological abuse that is more devastating. “When I commented on how pretty she looked in a photograph, how like a pop star, she replied, ‘I’m no star; I’m just a whore, that’s all’” (Bales 37). This lack of self value goes beyond simple depression; Siri needs years of treatment to recover. When Siri first became a slave, she longed for freedom and happiness. Now she simply watches time pass as her life moves forward. The systems involved in the breaking of Siri are her community and her brothel. A community is meant to be a support system, but for Siri, the community of women in the brothel fails to support her, and she most likely fails to support them. The failure of the community is related to the brothel because it provides the women with no emotional support or periods of relaxation. The brothel is also the main abuser. The intentional emotional destruction of the women is one of the worst aspects of Siri’s life as a prostitute.
Despite Siri’s terrible life of abuse and rape, prostitution is illegal in Thailand. The Thai government though, has done very little to stop the forcing of women to become sex slaves. This can be attributed to the fact that the government does not care to involve itself in such a widespread and lucrative practice, but it also lacks control of its growing country. “In many ways, Thailand closely resembles another country that went through rapid industrialization and economic boom over one hundred years ago…The United States faced many of the problems confronting Thailand today” (Bales 71). This comparison gives one hope that over the next ten, fifty or one hundred years, significant changes will be made. These changes however, will only happen if a global effort is made to end prostitution. Siri, has received no help from outside sources. Even her family encourages her to stay and work off the debt. People are working to help girls like Siri, but they are deeply under supported. In 1992 Thailand received a large amount of bad press about its acceptance of child prostitution. The government responded by setting up a special task force to “deal” with the problem. “The unit was ordered to raid every brothel in the country that had underage or forced prostitutes. This major law enforcement campaign was undertaken by six men, with one car” (Bales 72). Nearly all “attempts” to stop prostitution by the government are of this nature. There are a few independent organizations who are working to help girls like Siri. The Center for the Protection of Children’s Rights focuses on saving the children in brothels, giving them the medial and psychological care they need and then allowing them to grow in a safe environment. Both the Foundation for Women and the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women pressure the government to enforce its laws against prostitution. Finally the End Child Prostitution in Asia Tourism Network (ECPAT) and the Task Force to End Child Sexploitation have both been highly successful in telling the story of girls like Siri to the world. Hopefully the awareness they raise will turn into action. It will most likely take decades for Thailand to change and the changes may not affect Siri or her peers, but one must stand behind the organizations who fight for the abused and vulnerable women in the brothels of Thailand, because these noble groups are “attempting to shift a mountain of social indifference” (Bales 79) and they will always need more help.
