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EMPOWERING SEX WORKERS: phuket radio helps with rights

Published on November 20, 2005 - New programme aims to tell the one profession ignored in post-tsunami reconstruction how to get its due. Oy is no stranger to the microphone. With karaoke bars a staple of Patong’s night life, Oy uses them regularly to recruit and entertain her male customers.

But she appeared a bit nervous in front of one now, for the first time, preparing to co-host Phuket’s newest radio talk show, “Empowering” sex workers.

“I haven’t had a chance to rehearse, I guess it’s okay to improvise,” says Oy with a smile. “All of my friends promise they will be listening. Today we will talk about safe sex and opportunities for job training for the women of Patong.”

Although Wittayu Tid-Din (on-the-ground community radio) transmissions reach most of Phuket, Oy’s target audience on Sunday afternoon is 6,000 of her fellow sex workers on Patong Beach. Samorn Maneewan, or Nam, the programme’s main host, says that since its inception two months ago the programme has “instilled a sense of community in these women struggling to make a living as the tourists return to Patong”.

Nam was among the volunteers dispatched to Patong by the Empower Foundation shortly after the tsunami ravaged Phuket’s prime tourist beaches. The foundation, which supports women in the service industry, feared that sex workers would have difficulty obtaining assistance as their occupations are not protected under labour laws or social-security programmes. More problematic were the many migrant workers whose existence on Thai soil is unrecognised and illegal.

The plight of tsunami-affected sex workers and other women in the service industry has indeed received little attention. Empower estimates that about 2,000 sex workers lost their lives when the walls of water hit, but they’ve never been reported.

“We know this,” says Chantawipa Apisuk, Empower’s founder, “through information gathered from the remaining sex workers and bar-owners. However, it is almost impossible to verify because most women came from other regions, particularly the Northeast. Their families lacked the resources to search for them or their remains when they went missing. Some remain unaware that their daughters were taken by the tsunami because the women hide their careers from their families.”

Oy recalled that fateful morning of December 26. Sound asleep after an exhausting Christmas night with her customers, she awoke to the sound of what she thought was thunder, then heard screams. “My room-mates were rushing through the door,” Oy explained. “I grabbed the nearest clothes and wrapped myself as I ran to join the crowd seeking higher ground.”

Mentally shattered and financially broke, many women returned to their villages. Oy too was tempted to return to her family in Ubon Ratchathani but knew there would be no work there. She also chose not to join many of her colleagues seeking evening employment in Bangkok, Pattaya or Samui.

“With virtually no tourists left it was not easy, but on some lucky weekend nights we would get farang volunteers who came to relax here,” Oy recalled. “Most of them were helping retrieve and collect bodies of tsunami victims at Wat Yan Yao in Phang Nga. Sometimes I could tell from the smell on their clothes that they had just come from the temple.”

But on Valentine’s Day, Oy and others found that their extra down-time could be a blessing in disguise. Empower had just opened it’s Patong office to offer career-development programmes for the remaining sex workers. With courses ranging from English to computers, and soon-to-open cosmetology to massage, nearly 200 students became enrolled in an effort to broaden their employment opportunities.

“I never thought I would be able to talk to a farang with confidence,” says Re, who took English classes for six months. “Now I can give better service to my guests because I can ask them what they want. I can also read e-mail they send me after they return to their homes.”

Empower is certainly not the only place sex workers might have to learn new skills, but as Re explains, its much easier, because it is run by, and utilised by, people like herself.

“Now I have friends to openly share my experiences, my ups and downs, and cry with,” says Re. “Not every man is nice. They think they can pay us to do anything, but now it’s much easier to tell them no and to avoid being exploited.”

Nam and Oy’s radio programme is Empower’s newest effort to further connect these women at Patong. The foundation has already successfully launched similar programmes for sex workers in Chiang Mai and Mae Sai, a border town in Chiang Rai.

Fearing the rise of HIV/Aids infections among sex workers after the tsunami, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) contributed US$20,000 (Bt800,000) to Empower’s programmes to promote safe sex.

“We worry that the scarcity of customers following the tsunami will cause women to concede to having sex without using condoms in exchange for higher pay,” says Kaew, ILO’s relief consultant in Phuket. “We want this radio programme to be an effective educational tool for women about HIV/Aids.”

Re concedes this has become a problem. “I tell them no condom no intercourse,” she stresses. “I don’t want to risk my life for a little extra money, and messages from the programmes help to confirm that I’m not alone in making the right choice.”

And having choices is what Empower is all about, says Chantawipa. “These women are the backbone of a service industry that is a key part of our tourist economy. We want to make sure they can choose how they wish to make the most of it, not feel victimised by it.”

Nantiya Tangwisutijit

The Nation

Phuket