For my family, I sold my body March 31, 14:06
"I regret it, but I decided it myself,"
says a 30-year-old woman living in Thailand, Southeast Asia.
Due to the effects of the new coronavirus, she chose sex workers (people who provide sexual services and get paid) to lose their jobs and support their families.
In Thailand, many women are forced to make similar choices as she does.
I interviewed what was happening.
(Asia General Bureau Reporter Keisuke Matsuo)
A woman standing on the street and selling her body
The woman stood on a street in Bangkok, the capital of Thailand, one night in January.
This street is known as a place for sex workers to stand in the daytime and negotiate prices with customers.
She dyed her hair up to her shoulders brown and stood with her arms crossed, and she had a restless look on her face.
When I talked to him, he said he had lost his job due to the new Corona and had just become a sex worker three weeks ago.
I wanted to know the reason, so I talked to him at home at a later date.
Her name is Eun (pseudonym), 30 years old.
I lived in a studio apartment on the outskirts of Bangkok.
On the floor of the room were cardboard boxes containing chocolate, stationery, and toys.
“I send it to my son almost every week.”
Eun is a single mother who grew up in northeastern Thailand and has a son who is nine years old.
It is said that he works in Bangkok with his son as his parents and sends him to his parents' house every month.
Apart from that, every week I buy sweets and toys for my son, pack them in boxes, put sticky notes with messages on them, and send them to my parents' house.
Above all, I was looking forward to the son who received the package read the message aloud through the videophone.
Losing work due to corona sickness
Originally, Mr. Eun worked at a restaurant in Bangkok to sell liquor.
Monthly income is about 80,000 yen in Japanese yen.
Older parents could only get a monthly pension of about 4,000 yen, so they sent 60,000 yen to their parents' home.
The rest of my income was almost exhausted from my living expenses, and I was barely able to live.
It became even more severe with the spread of the new corona infection.
Bars were closed, liquor couldn't be sold, and Eun finally lost his job in January.
Since then, Eun has refrained from going out, reduced food, and saved as much as possible.
I desperately searched for a new job, but I couldn't find a job because the number of job offers was drastically reduced due to the influence of the new Corona.
I lived with my savings, but my small savings soon seemed to run out.
Sell your body for your family
"Are you enough money to buy the food you eat?"
One day, Eun's mother contacted her, worried about her daughter.
When she was losing her energy, she heard a casual word from her mother that she thought, "I have to make money" for my family and my son.
However, in reality, there is no new work and the remaining savings are only about 1000 yen.
When I was worried and contacted a friend, a sex worker was recommended as a job that would earn me money immediately.
Sell your body and earn money.
Eun hesitated about the options he hadn't thought of, but after thinking all night, he began to think that he had no other choice in his situation.
Why am i doing this
Still, when he first stood on the street, Eun was urged to escape.
Every time I was stared at by the people passing by, I felt despised.
What if an acquaintance sees you standing on the street waiting for a customer?
Every time such anxiety passed through my head, I couldn't keep standing on the street unless I was hiding behind the building and calming down.
And when I sold my body for the first time, I had to be touched by a man I had just met and give myself up, and I was struck by intense self-loathing, wondering why I was doing this.
When he saw the cash given by the man after the act was completed, he thought that he could send it to his family and at the same time he felt that he had lost something.
Still, because of my family, I had to keep standing on the street to survive.
"When I stand on this street and sell my body, I try not to think about anything other than my family. I don't want anyone, not to mention my parents and son, to know that I sell and work. There is nothing that can be hidden in this world. Some parts have given up on the possibility that it will be known someday. "
I don't want to hurt myself anymore
In early February, Eun was able to find a new job and decided to quit a sex worker.
I worked for about a month.
It is said that the remittance to parents was not interrupted.
On the other hand, he also said that he "regrets" these experiences.
"This is a lot of things in my life. The only good thing is that I got the money. I don't want to hurt myself anymore."
"My dream is to live with my son early, that's all."
Other women who choose sex workers
In fact, prostitution is prohibited by law in Thailand.
However, there are many women who start working as sex workers for their daily lives, like Mr. Eun in Corona, the group "SWING" that works to protect the rights of sex workers in Thailand points out.
In the background, it is said that there is a disparity between urban and rural areas in Thai society.
According to Thai government statistics in 2019, the difference in monthly household income between the capital Bangkok and Mae Hong Son Province in the north, which has the lowest income, is 2.8 times.
There is a huge gap between cities with a thriving manufacturing industry and rural areas that rely on agriculture.
For this reason, many people go to work from rural areas to Bangkok to support their families, but the number of people who lose their jobs is increasing rapidly due to the influence of the new corona.
It is believed that many people stay in the city and start working as sex workers because there is not enough work to support their families when they return to rural areas.
A needy sex worker
On the other hand, even if you become a sex worker, it is never easy to earn income.
In particular, "SWING" believes that sex workers were greatly affected by the sharp decrease in foreign tourists, who were considered to be the main tourists, after the expansion of the new corona.
In fact, Patpong Street, one of Bangkok's entertainment districts, which was crowded with many foreign tourists before the spread of the infection, is still quiet.
In a January survey of 941 sex workers in Bangkok and Pattaya, SWING said that 75% of the total couldn't eat even one meal a day and 45% had no place to live. did.
The survey shows that many of them are in need, rather than earning income.
The Thai government has prepared benefits to help everyone, but prostitution is prohibited by law, so there are many cases where sex workers who get illegal jobs do not receive it.
"SWING" calls for further national support.
"Their work is considered illegal and no one can help, but if for each reason or need you have to do this, we say sex work is a job. You should be aware that when a crisis is imminent, you should be able to receive the same support as others. "
In "the country of smiles"
This time, I started interviewing to find out the influence of the disappearance of people from one of Thailand's leading entertainment districts, but what I could see from there was the current situation of Thai society, which has a gap between urban and rural areas.
According to the "SWING" survey, more than 80% of sex workers answered that they are spending their income for their families, and Eun was also forced to do so for his family, so he chose sex work. was.
What is highlighted in the corona-stricken Thailand is the reality that those who were originally relatively poor are in even greater difficulty.
I would like to continue to think about issues such as poverty and inequality.
Keisuke Matsuo,
Reporter of the General Affairs Bureau of Asia
After working at the Shizuoka Bureau in
2010
, he
was in charge of the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare in the Social Affairs Department and covered employment issues.
Since 2nd year of Reiwa, he has been in charge of coverage of Thailand and Laos at the General Bureau of Asia.