Rescuing boys from Thailand's northern sex trade

[webfact]

Rescuing boys from Thailand's northern sex trade

by Clare Wiley

 

Chiang Mai, Thailand - Krit hangs out near McDonald's most days, polishing the hood of his green tuk-tuk and waiting for customers. He can make as much as 3,000 Thai baht ($92) in a day driving tourists around this northern city.

 

Several years ago when Krit was just 16, this picture was very different. His customers were still Western tourists, but they went to him for sex, not tuk-tuk rides. Krit was a victim of Thailand's sex-trafficking trade. For five years he worked in seedy bars and dingy massage joints in Chiang Mai's red light district. He endured cruelty and exploitation, forced to go home with the men who venture to these dark places to buy sex with children.

 

It was a horrific life that forced Krit to the brink; the teen was later hospitalised with HIV, and almost died. But he made a miraculous recovery and went on to set up his own tuk-tuk business.

 

Full story: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/12/rescuing-boys-thailand-northern-sex-trade-171210184544070.html

 

-- AL JAZEERA 2017-12-11

 

 

[mentalcolonization]

That's what farangs are made of. Destroying kids

[metisdead]

An off topic post has been removed. 

[geriatrickid]

Appreciably,  sex tourism is a direct result of poverty and the exploitation of the poor by those who have the means to do so. However, I see this as a public health problem. The prostitutes are a dynamic reservoir of deadly infectious disease. With the end of the HIV surveillance and screening programs, HIV has gained a more insidious foothold in Thailand and the numbers of unidentified carriers  continues to grow exponentially.  If tourists in Pattaya and Patong  were aware that a majority of the sex trade workers were disease carriers they might change their behavior. No one wants to  point out that an estimated 40%+ of the males who work the boy bars of Patong are HIV+.

 

We now have antibiotic resistant gonorrhea. I won't even get into the  manifestation of HPV warts in these people, but it can be rather grim, especially when they try home remedies.

 

Bring back the  mandatory screening and treatment program and  not only  will  the diseases be contained, but it will deter the sex tourists. That is what happened with the old campaign. The military regime that overthrew Thaksin cut back on the screening. (Thaksin had started the cutbacks, and the army moved  on with gusto.)

 

[Lucky mike]

The screening of sexual predators should be more stringent ! Most of the victims have little protection from exploitation.....driven by poverty and hopelessness...increased penalties,  going on international sex register for easier recognition.....

[lvr181]

6 hours ago, mentalcolonization said:

That's what farangs are made of. Destroying kids

Not just "farang"! 

[simoh1490]

Farang is only a very small part of the problem, white westerners don't have a monopoly on this sort of thing, neither are they anywhere near to having a significant presence here.

[metisdead]

An off topic post has been removed.

[moe666]

I have to wonder where this red light district is located in Chiang mai. I live here and have been to Loy Khrok a few times and never have I saw young boys sitting in the laps of westerners. Maybe there is an area this happens in but in my years here never seen it.

 

I would guess if you where interested in this activity then you would find the location. 

I have been in Thailand long enough to know that some NGOs are not what they seem, I would hope this one is really helping these young men to recover from the trauma they have experienced. 

[moe666]

8 hours ago, mentalcolonization said:

That's what farangs are made of. Destroying kids

O please, majority of the Thai sex industry is focused on Thais

[sanemax]

27 minutes ago, moe666 said:

I have to wonder where this red light district is located in Chiang mai. I live here and have been to Loy Khrok a few times and never have I saw young boys sitting in the laps of westerners. Maybe there is an area this happens in but in my years here never seen it.

Having lived in the area Loi Kroh,, must have been to every bar along that road and I know quite a lot of the bar owners and also many of the bargirls (not as a customer BTW ) and I have never seen any males working in the bars, let along any underage males , and I ve also never seen any underage girls working in the bars , if it does go on, then its underground and not visible.

[simoh1490]

Loi Kroh is for tourists and resident expats, although there is some of what is being discussed there. The red light district in Chiang Mai isn't just one central area it's something that is spread across everywhere in a way that you probably couldn't really identify it as such, a couple of bars here, a karaoke or two there, and so on. The same is largely true throughout Thailand, there are areas where a westerner will identify with the traditional red light area as seen in Amsterdam for example but in most towns and cities the real red light district is a thin veneer that is almost everywhere and the average westerner probably wouldn't recognise it if he was standing in the middle of it. Behind D2, on the narrow road that runs parallel with Night Bazaar, is a cluster of five or six bars, the two in the front are straight bars for tourists who want a beer after shopping, the ones behind are nastiness personified.

[Ruffian Dick]

Somebody's asking for a map?

[barmatt]

I call BS. Contracted HIV then survived ?? A fairy tale with happy ending.

[simoh1490]

1 hour ago, barmatt said:

I call BS. Contracted HIV then survived ?? A fairy tale with happy ending.

The survival rates of people with HIV now equal about the same as the rest of the general population.

[sanemax]

5 hours ago, simoh1490 said:

Loi Kroh is for tourists and resident expats, although there is some of what is being discussed there. 

Really ?

I say that there isnt .

Prove me wrong , name the bars .

[simoh1490]

37 minutes ago, sanemax said:

Really ?

I say that there isnt .

Prove me wrong , name the bars .

Name and shame!!!

 

A friend used to have a bar, behind D2, he was in business at the time it was built, the bars behind his were nasty. The same cop, if that's what he was (green uniform) used to patrol every evening, an older guy, he knew exactly what was going on and where. A friend of the friend was a Brit. and he was into that kind of stuff and had acquired a hill tribe, er, um friend! He got caught at the guest house where he lived, a joint operation between an NGO and police. He couldn't leave the country, for a while there were a lot of expats trying to figure out how to get him out, even some expats who are members of this forum were involved although it had absolutely nothing to do with TVF. Eventually, it went to trial and he got four years, that's the last we head of it all and him - in his case the underage part couldn't be proven either way since there were no records of birth or ID card etc. It was me understanding that particular picture that made me look more closely at what was going on in that area, as said, right behind the friend's bar was a thriving industry (still there I believe)  - also at the old Peak climbing wall bar area it was the same although the revamp by Chiang has improved that situation a lot.

 

BTW even if I could name and shame I wouldn't, especially not to a forum audience, that would be really silly and would just aggravate the problem.

[sanemax]

23 minutes ago, simoh1490 said:

Name and shame!!!

 

A friend used to have a bar, behind D2, he was in business at the time it was built, the bars behind his were nasty.

All those bars next to Foxy Lady ?

They all went years ago

[CMBob]

9 minutes ago, simoh1490 said:

BTW even if I could name and shame I wouldn't, especially not to a forum audience, that would be really silly and would just aggravate the problem.

Don't worry as there are no bars there for you to "name and shame" and they (the bars near the burned  Peak Climbing wall and the ones behind the D-2 west of Soi 1, Thaphae Road) haven't existed for many, many, years.  That is a fact and, if you don't believe me or Sanemax, just take a drive through there and look.  My memory is at times faulty but I believe the last bar that remained opened back there closed 8+ years ago.  The climbing wall (referred to as the  "Peak") burned in 2008 as I have a photo of that. 

 

 

[simoh1490]

I'm quite happy to believe you when you say they are gone, it's been a long time since I've been there although I do sometimes glance to the right when driving down Night Bazzar and it seemed they may still have been there.

 

But perhaps the bigger point is that those things existed here in CM at various locations, in fact, they thrived for a time. Just because that particular area has gone upmarket doesn't mean to say those things have gone away, I don't think things work like that. Instead, it will have moved or been driven deeper underground and I suspect that being a farang wont be an aid to finding them, now if you're Thai or Asian, that might be a different story.

[CMBob]

1 minute ago, simoh1490 said:

But perhaps the bigger point is that those things existed here in CM at various locations, in fact, they thrived for a time. Just because that particular area has gone upmarket doesn't mean to say those things have gone away, I don't think things work like that. Instead, it will have moved or been driven deeper underground and I suspect that being a farang wont be an aid to finding them, now if you're Thai or Asian, that might be a different story.

Next time you're driving down Loy Kroh, simply take a drive up Soi 1, Thaphae Road (that's the Soi immediately west of the Le Meridien Hotel) and you'll see that what we've said is true....the bars are gone (and have been gone for many years).

 

I've been visiting here in CM for 18 years and essentially living here for the last eight years.  I occasionally (but rarely) saw a falang with a Thai that appeared to be under 18 years of age but that was 8-15+ years ago.  You might be right that there still exists some underground activity that caters mainly to Thais; however, that's pure speculation on both my part and your part (i.e., probably a fair guess but we have no facts to support it).  I do agree with the motives of the Urban Life group (as described in the Al Jazeera article) but, frankly, I personally believe that they're over-exaggerating the problem (maybe to encourage donations?) and, as far as Chiangmai proper is concerned, they're at a minimum talking about time period that's long, long, ago. 

[sanemax]

27 minutes ago, simoh1490 said:

Name and shame!!!

BTW even if I could name and shame I wouldn't, especially not to a forum audience, that would be really silly and would just aggravate the problem.

You have suggested that there are trafficked kids being held against they will in bars down Loi Kroh.

If know that is going on and  you dont do anything about it, then you are part of the problem .

If you know of something , would you like to go to those bars tonight, with our cameras and expose it ?

   Put the videos online, causing the authorities to take action .

So, either back your claims up, or just admit that you dont really know what you are talking about

[CMBob]

5 minutes ago, sanemax said:

You have suggested that there are trafficked kids being held against they will in bars down Loi Kroh.

Calm down.  That's not what he said, it's only an unfair inference you're making.  We've made our point and he's acknowledged he hasn't been down there in years.  Enough.

[simoh1490]

Look guys, I'm not going to argue with you, I've lived here full time for over 16 years and I've told you in detail all the things I have known, you have pointed out that the bars I referred to have now closed and I have accepted that without difficulty - Sanemex, if you want to  dramatize this subject further I suggest you find something better to occupy your time!

[tgeezer]

Sex is natural and this sort of thing goes on all over the World, Children are not miniature adults and without restrictions on thier behaviour, commonly called parenthood they will get into scrapes. The 'grooming' which went on in England happened in part because our society has relieved parents of the power to control their own children, the girls only complained when their 'boyfriend' started sharing them with their friends. Their parents complained to the police but the girls were wilful, the police reacted as I would expect the police to react here, they saw the girls driving with their much older Pakistani 'boyfriends' just as the police here see old farag with youngters of both sexes. Removing or blaming the foregners is no more the answer than blaming foreigners here. Thailand seems to have a less judgemental approach to sex, that doesn't mean approval, it means that people are masters of their own destiny once they reach adulthood defined by their age. Strangely, or not depending on your point of view, this age is deemed to be quite young fifteen or sixteen, regarding the age of consent. Many Westerners imbued with a deep need to moralise come to Thailand to preach and to accuse other Westerners of being the problem and in some ways we are, certainly if we didn't have the ability to give more money than locals the problem would be reduced in scale but I doubt that it would go away.
Children are now toxic in UK and only a fool would have anything to do with them because of the assumption that every unmarried male is a sexual predator when in fact they are in the minority. I would be more suspicious at adults being interested in children of the opposite sex than same sex. Having ones tadger played with by an adult was more of a laugh than a trauma, I know several boys from poor backgrounds in UK who were financed by queers and who grew up to be successful in life.


Sent from my iPad using Thaivisa Connect

[sanemax]

15 minutes ago, CMBob said:

Calm down.  That's not what he said, it's only an unfair inference you're making.  We've made our point and he's acknowledged he hasn't been down there in years.  Enough.

Simoh quite clearly stated that there "is" things going on like that in Loi Kroh , although that has now changed to *was* and the bars that he mentioned were not even in LK and they closed down years ago and the participants got arrested and jailed.

   He should stop making false allegations

[jak2002003]

This thing still goes on in CM.  The bars were located near the Peak area.. which is long gone.  Now they have moved... but are only 3 or so bars left.  They are near Loi Kroh road, but not on it and one in the city somewhere near Thapai gate.  And, I do not go to them... but when I fist moved to CM I went to the Peak area.. as it was listed in the gay guide books for the gay bars.  And I did not like them or use their 'facilities'.  !

 

However, I think the Urban Light Organisation is making a mountain out of a mole hill.  Maybe its just about getting money.. and playing at helping people.  And with the name Urban Light.. it kind of reeks or some Christian conversion thing.  Again, may be wrong.  I did see that the foundation is on many Christian web sites and blogs and other American Christians posting about how they helped with the organisation.

 

I am also not sure that the boys in the bars are actually children being trafficked. They are young men... who are poor, come down from the mountain hill tribes to get money and live in the city.  They could just as easily work in a none sex bar, food place, construction etc, but they choose that job.  Even many of these young 'boys' already have babies of their own with the girls from the hill tribes... so they can't be that young.

 

 

[simoh1490]

36 minutes ago, sanemax said:

Simoh quite clearly stated that there "is" things going on like that in Loi Kroh , although that has now changed to *was* and the bars that he mentioned were not even in LK and they closed down years ago and the participants got arrested and jailed.

   He should stop making false allegations

Get a grip sanemex, get a grip!

[sanemax]

9 minutes ago, simoh1490 said:

Get a grip sanemex, get a grip!

You did make some quite serious allegations about a certain area , and those allegations turned out to be untrue .

   You must realise that if you make untrue allegations , some people are going to contest those allegations

[simoh1490]

12 minutes ago, sanemax said:

You did make some quite serious allegations about a certain area , and those allegations turned out to be untrue .

   You must realise that if you make untrue allegations , some people are going to contest those allegations

Given that Night Bazzar is a major tourist centre I think it's pretty safe to say that such things do still go on, the article seems to suggest it does and I can only agree. It is after all prostitution which is not just limited to females selling themselves in the bars of loi kroh.