Thai sex workers may soon be protected by law

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Thai sex workers may soon be protected by law

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Thailand’s exploited, vulnerable sex workers could soon be protected by law

By Thai PBS World

January 22, 2023

Many thousands of Thais have worked in the sex industry for decades without legal protection. So it’s not surprising that most of them are looking forward eagerly to the passage of the Sex Workers Protection Bill.

“With no legal shield at all, we are exploited both directly and indirectly,” said a 37-year-old sex worker.

In the 13 years she has been selling sexual services, she has witnessed operators use harsh tactics to control sex workers and ensure they keep bringing in the money. She pointed out that owners of venues where sex is traded must themselves pay officials under the table, as prostitution remains illegal in Thailand.

Owners of so-called girly bars also fine the sex workers heavily if they fail to show up at work for a day or two. Sometimes, operators deduct money from the commission the women make on drinks bought for them by customers, hoping they will be too drunk to notice.

And since prostitution is illegal, venues providing sexual services are not registered and therefore not subject to regulations on hygiene and safety. As a result, sex workers are vulnerable to disease and on-the-job injuries.

“If the bill is passed, prostitution will become legal and the stigma against us will also fade,” said the sex worker, who is also a mother.

What is the Sex Worker Protection Bill?

The bill is being pushed by the Department of Women’s Affairs and Family Development in a bid to undo the 1996 Prostitution Suppression Act, and provide protection for sex workers, as well as improve their quality of life.

The department has commissioned Thammasat University to prepare the content of the draft bill.

“We believe the final draft will be ready next month,” department director-general Jintana Chanbamrung said.

She explained the drafting process includes brainstorming between all involved parties so they can find common ground. Also taken into account are similar laws in other countries where sex work is legal. So far, prostitution has been legalized under specific laws in at least 15 countries, including the Netherlands and Germany.

“We hope to present a bill that is acceptable to the majority,” Jintana said.

Chatchalawan Muangjan, Empower Foundation’s legal advisor, said once the bill is turned into law, sex workers will be entitled to the same state welfare that white-collar workers currently enjoy.

Key clauses and contracts

The bill stipulates that all sex workers and their clients must be at least 18 years of age. Sex workers will be protected from discriminatory practices and receive proper payment from customers or venue operators. All benefits and conditions will have to be set in writing.

Most importantly, the bill gives sex workers the right to refuse to provide services at any time. Similarly, customers too can refuse to buy the service.

In case of disputes between customers and service providers, officials will act as mediators.

The bill defines sex venue operators as intermediaries who coordinate or procure sexual services for customers, with or without benefiting from a share of the earnings.

The legislation also requires operators to seek a license, in a bid to ensure proper protection for sex workers.

The bill also prescribes the establishment of agencies that provide protection and ensure sex workers have access to legal recourse. One such agency would be a national-level committee, chaired by the social development and human security minister and featuring the head of the Department of Women’s Affairs and Family Development, the Provincial Administration Department, the Disease Control Department and the Employment Department. Also sitting on the committee would be the Social Security Office’s secretary-general, the National Police chief, up to three representatives of sex workers and up to three specialists appointed by the committee.

Apart from the national-level committee, under the bill every province would also have a panel that provides protection to sex workers under its jurisdiction. As well as providing protection, these committees will also offer relevant information and support for sex workers’ occupational development.

Penalties and punishment

The Sex Workers Protection Bill seeks to clamp down on child abuse and the trafficking of minors. The bill penalizes anyone who pays for sex with a minor aged 15 to 17 with a jail term of between one and three years, plus a fine of 20,000 to 60,000 baht. This penalty will be applicable even if the minor is a consenting partner.

Those who pay for sex with a minor below the age of 15 would face two to six years in prison and a fine of between 40,000 and 120,000 baht.

Meanwhile, anyone who procures a minor aged 15 to 17 for sexual services, even if it is with the youngster’s consent, faces a prison sentence of five to 15 years as well as a fine of between 200,000 and 400,000 baht.

If a parent or guardian is aware of or an accomplice in such a transaction with their child, they face up to 20 years in jail and a maximum fine of 400,000 baht.

People who are worried that youngsters may be lured into the flesh trade suggest that the bill revise the minimum legal age of sex workers from 18 to 20 or even 25.

Will this law make sex work more attractive?

Chatchalawan does not believe the passage of the Sex Worker Protection Bill would encourage more people to jump into the flesh trade, pointing out that it aims to protect sex workers, not promote their occupation.

“We will attend all brainstorming sessions and forums related to the bill to ensure that the views are balanced,” she said.

Legal recognition for sex work may also help reduce the social condemnation attached to the trade.

One female sex worker said she does not understand why people in the sex trade face so much stigma. She pointed out that sex work does no harm to others, and those in the trade are merely offering what little they have to make ends meet.

“This job allows me to support my family financially,” she said.

Tunyawaj Kamolwongwat, a Move Forward Party member and spokesperson for the House committee on youth, women, the elderly, ethnic people and LGBTQ, said his party would push through the Sex Workers Protection Bill if it gained power after the upcoming election.

“But even if we end up in the opposition camp, we will continue pushing hard for the passage of this bill,” he said.

https://www.thaipbsworld.com/thailands- ... ed-by-law/
Jun

Re: Thai sex workers may soon be protected by law

Post by Jun »

So legalise prostitution, but make the age of consent so high that it's still illegal for those doing most of the trade ? (Up to 25 years old)
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Re: Thai sex workers may soon be protected by law

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Jun wrote: Sun Jan 22, 2023 8:02 pm So legalise prostitution, but make the age of consent so high that it's still illegal for those doing most of the trade ? (Up to 25 years old)
It would come as no surprise to me if they do that. You know how it usually works - take a good idea and turn it into something absurd.

Part of the article says, "Chatchalawan Muangjan, Empower Foundation’s legal advisor, said once the bill is turned into law, sex workers will be entitled to the same state welfare that white-collar workers currently enjoy."

I'm wondering what constitutes a sex worker in the first place, at least one that would fall under protection of this law. Apparently, even though they don't say so, prostitution would be legal - despite the fact that it is technically illegal as it stands today, but almost never enforced in any way. The article does not make that clear, at least not clear to me. Obviously someone who works in a venue such as a bar would be a sex worker. But what about people such as freelancers, hookers on the street, people who hook up with customers via the apps, a person someone meets merely by chance but gets paid - a part time sex worker? Would the law be of any use to those people?

My guess there are many more sex workers on the apps these day than there are working in bars and massage shops. I can't tell from the article whether they would have any protection with this law.

How would the authorities know that the person coming to them with some sort of dispute is really a sex worker? Would sex workers have to somehow register as sex workers? What about former sex workers who now have "retired" or given up and returned to the rice farm?
Jun

Re: Thai sex workers may soon be protected by law

Post by Jun »

The other question is does this stand any chance of being passed or is it just wishful thinking by some pressure group, with no real support from the political parties ?
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Re: Thai sex workers may soon be protected by law

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Jun wrote: Mon Jan 23, 2023 8:17 am does this stand any chance of being passed
We'll know soon enough.
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Re: Thai sex workers may soon be protected by law

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The part that raises my eyebrows is the part about the minimum eligibility would be 20 years old. I find that absurd considering that bar workers can be 18 and 18 is the age of consent. What do they think the 18 and 19 year olds are going to do, stop offering their "services" and wait until they reach 20? In my opinion, I see no valid reason to exclude anyone who falls within the legal age of consent whether they have reached 20 years old or not. They'll still be out there selling sex and they need the protection this law would offer as much as anybody.
__________________________________________________________

Draft prostitution law to set voluntary service at minimum 20 years

March 3, 2023

A COMMITTEE drafting a new law governing prostitution has agreed that voluntary sexual service without any criminal penalties should be allowed from 20 years of age, Matichon newspaper said this afternoon (Mar. 3).

Ms. Jintana Chanbamroong, head of the Department of Women’s Affairs and Family Development at Social Development and Human Security Ministry, said after presiding over a meeting of the committee drafting the new law that public hearings both online and on-site were held in five cities including Bangkok, Chonburi and Hat Yai.

Focus group hearings too were held before a conclusion was reached and a proposal tabled to Social Development and Human Security Minister Juti Krairiksh that a new law on prostitution be implemented.

It is initially called the Draft Act for the Protection of Sexual Services B.E. … and is planned to replace the current Prevention and Suppression of Prostitution Act, B.E. 2539 (1996).

The focus is on protecting voluntary prostitutes with the minimum age for offering sexual service being 20 years without any criminal punishment.

They will have rights and be entitled to welfare in the labour system without being identified as a sex worker. They will also have the right to fair compensation but must undergo health checks to ensure they are not infected with any contagious diseases.

However prostitution that falls in the category of human trafficking, such as procurement or coercion, would still be a violation of the Human Trafficking Act.

Brothel operators will be required to not violate the conditions for protecting service providers who are their employees and only operate in specific zones, particularly not near educational institutions or places of worship.

Also will be stipulated is that it is prohibited to engage in sexual relations with prostitutes under 20 years of age with those procuring and luring them into prostitution too being liable for criminal penalties.

Parents who know of such acts taking place would also face penalties as would those who detain, abuse, torture or threaten and force people to enter prostitution.

Initially the new law would not allow migrant workers to join prostitution.

Jintana said the next step is to study which other laws will be affected by the new prostitution law and work out the social and economic impact including maintaining the country’s image.

The committee studied prostitution laws in other countries and adopted New Zealand’s law abolishing the crime of prostitution as a model.

This draft law is expected to be completed and will be tabled to the new government around August this year.

In New Zealand, the government fully decriminalised sex work in 2003, making it legal for any citizen aged 18 or over to buy or sell sexual services.

https://thainewsroom.com/2023/03/03/dra ... -20-years/
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Re: Thai sex workers may soon be protected by law

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Thailand Drafts Bill to Decriminalize its Billion-Dollar Sex Trade

by Zsombor Peter

April 7, 2023

From the rows of massage parlors, pulsing night clubs and rowdy bars of Thailand’s gaudy red-light districts, the country’s billion-dollar sex trade operates all but in the open.

Technically, the sex they sell is illegal, but a new government-led plan aims to change that. It calls for repealing the 1996 Prevention and Suppression of Prostitution Act, which makes most sex work a crime, and replacing it with a new law, the Protection of Sex Work Act, affirming the rights of sex workers and their places of business to sell sex.

The bill’s proponents hope it will help the country’s sex workers — estimated to number anywhere from 100,000 to 300,000 — ply their trade more safely and earn higher wages. Opponents fear it will leave many sex workers exploited by middlemen and trafficking gangs, and clash with the country’s values and traditions.

“The law is now out of date,” said Jintana Janbumrung, director-general of the Department of Women’s Affairs and Family Development, which is spearheading the reform effort.

By giving sex workers legal status, she said, “they can be workers who have access to the same welfare as other occupations, whose rights will not be violated, who will not be exploited by their clients or sex business operators [and have] a better quality of life.”

To help craft the bill, her department hired Narong Jaiharn, an associate professor at Thailand’s Thammasat Law School, and held a series of public hearings across the country.

While getting paid for sex is not illegal in and of itself in Thailand, he said, soliciting and advertising paid sex is. So is running a business where sex is for sale, he added, putting much of the country’s sex industry outside the law.

Repealing the 1996 law would make all that legal. The new law drafted to replace it, though, would require the clubs, bars and parlors where sex is sold to apply for a special license.

The goal is to make sex work safer.

“Sex workers are afraid of the police because it is illegal,” Narong said. “If they inform that they [were] assault by someone, the police ask them ... where [were you] assault and why you go there?”

If the draft bill were made law, he added, “sex workers can tell the police that this is legal work and during their work they have been assault by the client.”

With legal status, Narong said, sex workers could also sign binding contracts subject to the country’s labor laws with the licensed businesses selling their services. The bill would give the country’s labor courts express jurisdiction to settle disputes over any contracts and agreements between those businesses and their sex workers.

That is a welcome prospect to Mai in northern Thailand’s Chiang Mai city, where the sex trade thrives steps away from the quaint holy temples of the city’s cloistered old town, a popular stop on the country’s tourist trail.

Now 37, she started selling sex 10 years ago after a string of low-paid jobs picking crops, bussing tables and cleaning hotels, anything to help support her family but nothing that paid as well as sex work.

“People have to work to make a living, just like everyone else,” she said. “Right now I take care of my father. My mother passed away some years ago, and my brother and sister have grown up. I used to support them too.”

She said most of the other sex workers she knows are also parents.

If her work were legal, Mai said the bar she works out of would not have to skim her wages to pay the bribes so local authorities will turn a blind eye. She said she could also get the bar to fix her wages at a guaranteed rate that would not rise or fall at the owner’s whim, as they do now.

“If I gain weight, or if I can’t get the customer to buy more drinks, the bar makes its own rules to cut my wages. Those rules would be against the law, but since sex work is illegal, the bar takes advantage,” she said.

With labor laws on the sex workers’ side, she added, “we could get paid fairly and we would be just like other workers in other jobs.”

Opponents

Sanphasit Koompraphant, a former director of Thailand’s nongovernment Center for the Protection of Children’s Rights Foundation, said licensing businesses to sell sex, as the bill proposes, would still amount to the commercial exploitation of sex workers and land the country afoul of the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, which it ratified in 1985.

He said Thais should have the right to sell their own sex on their own behalf, but that he worries that entrenching the system of middlemen who now run much of the industry will also keep sex workers from earning their fair share of the profits. Without stepped-up law enforcement, he said he worries too that arming bars and clubs with government licenses to sell sex could make it easier for sex traffickers, who force people into the industry, to hide their crimes in the guise of a legal business.

Sanphasit said the government should be doing more to draw people away from or out of the sex trade, rather than formally endorsing an industry he believes is bred by, and breeds, other social ills.

“This group of women will have very serious ... physical health and mental health problems, which means that we have to pay a lot of money to treat them. And moreover they will create more problems of family conflict and it will affect to Thai development,” he said. “It means we have to spend a lot of money to solve not only ... the health problem, but including social problem and family problem too.”

Narong said some who came to the public hearings he held also complained that legalizing or decriminalizing sex work would run counter to Thai culture.

Whether the bill the government has now drafted becomes law will be up to a new administration and parliament. The National Assembly was dissolved last month in preparation for elections on May 14.

The major parties in the race have said little or nothing about the issue so far. Still, Surang Janyam, a sex workers’ rights advocate who runs a group called Service Workers in Group, or SWING, said she remains optimistic about change.

After nearly 30 years of urging a succession of administrations to decriminalize the industry, to no avail, she said she believes the odds of some progress are at least growing.

“Because sex work [has] a lot of stigma, not a lot of the people [want] to come out to say, oh, I support. But if we look [at] the last five years, six years, I see the trend is better,” she said. “The support by the government ... is more than in the past.”

https://www.voanews.com/a/thailand-draf ... 40409.html
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Re: Thai sex workers may soon be protected by law

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Thailand's sex workers hope election will change their lives

Rights groups lobby political parties on bill to decriminalize industry

by Marwaan Macan-Markar, Asia regional correspondent

May 10, 2023

Thailand's sex workers are pinning their hopes on a new government after the general election on May 14 to pass legislation decriminalizing the country's buzzing, billion-dollar sex industry, which provides livelihoods to an estimated 300,000 people.

Many sex workers have rallied behind groups like the Empower Foundation, a local nonprofit campaigner for the rights of sex workers, that lobby political parties for endorsements.

A new law has been drafted following lengthy consultations to bring the sector out of the country's informal and abusive "gray economy" into the formal economy with full rights for the female, male and transgender sex workers. It seeks to replace the existing Prevention and Suppression of Prostitution Act, which was promulgated in 1996 and criminalized sex work.

Campaigners like Thanta Laowilawanyakul, a sex worker for over 20 years, are hopeful that the political tides are changing. All political parties that Empower has lobbied have "agreed to abolish the law," she said. "This is to end our work in the 'dark' business, and will mean we can stop running away from the police."

Officials at the Ministry for Social Development and Human Security have led the legislative reform initiative, reflecting a major shift in sentiment in Thailand's normally conservative bureaucracy.

"We hope to present the draft bill to the next minister of social development to present it to the new parliament," said Jintana Chanbamrung, director general of the department of family affairs at the ministry. "The 1996 law is based on criminalization, but the new law is based on protection of people."

Analysts say that the latest attempt to reposition the sex industry has already gone much further than previous efforts that were strongly opposed by groups rallying under the banners of family values and religion.

"In the 1996 law, it was illegal to provide sex work services, but the new law recognizes these services and the need for places that provide sex work to be registered," said Narong Jaiharn, a professor of law at Thammasat University in Bangkok.

Paradoxically, the industry has remained informal and criminal but has extremely high visibility, ranging from the red light go-go bar strips so popular with foreign tourists to the massive massage parlors frequented mostly by local men.

Despite its prominence, accurate estimates of the sex industry's size and value are elusive. Empower and various Thai and foreign researchers estimate that there are between 250,000 and 300,000 sex workers in the country, placing it about 8th in global rankings.

A 2015 study by Havocscope, a research company that collates information on global black markets, estimated that the Thai sex industry was worth $6.4 billion annually, which at the time equated to about 3% of gross domestic product. "[That was] a huge contribution, yet it was not accounted and recognized in the Thai economic system," noted analysts from the Thailand Development Research Institute, a public policy think tank, last year when the campaign to change the law was underway.

But there are skeptics who doubt the new law will go through given the massive number of bribes paid to enable the sex industry to flourish.

"This will not happen," Chuwit Kamolvisit, an outspoken former owner of a string of top massage parlors, told Nikkei Asia. "The situation now has a gap for corruption -- for officials to make money. They want it that way, closing one eye and opening another eye to make money and for the system to go on."

Sex workers like Mai Janta (a nickname) hope that others in Thai society will be more sympathetic to the plight of people like her. She is now 30 and has worked in the industry for a decade, and strongly endorses the changes they are clamoring for.

"I want society to realize the human value of sex workers," she said. "We should be recognized as normal workers and be able to work legally."

https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Thai-e ... heir-lives
Jun

Re: Thai sex workers may soon be protected by law

Post by Jun »

Since I don't see any genuine attempts to reduce corruption in Thailand, I would bet on the following being correct:
Marwaan Macan-Markar wrote: Wed May 10, 2023 4:19 pmBut there are skeptics who doubt the new law will go through given the massive number of bribes paid to enable the sex industry to flourish.

"This will not happen," Chuwit Kamolvisit, an outspoken former owner of a string of top massage parlors, told Nikkei Asia. "The situation now has a gap for corruption -- for officials to make money. They want it that way, closing one eye and opening another eye to make money and for the system to go on."
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