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Sources

Meet The Thailand Prostitutes Working On Their Own Terms

Most of the many thousands of sex workers in Thailand walk the streets looking for clients. But one group of women wanted a safe home base, so they opened a bar where they can entertain clients.

Mai, Peung and Fah in front of their bar in Chiang Mai
Mai, Peung and Fah in front of their bar in Chiang Mai
Kannikar Petchkaew

CHIANG MAI — In red light districts across Thailand, sex workers gather on the streets every night looking for customers. The government estimates there are 77,000 prostitutes in the country, while NGOs say the figure is closer to 300,000, but both agree that sex trafficking is a significant problem.

Even though the industry is widespread, sex work is technically illegal in Thailand. One establishment — owned and run by women who work in the industry — is challenging the norm and trying to ensure they can practice their profession on their own terms.

It's Friday night here in a tiny bar in the red light district of Chiang Mai, in northern Thailand. The night is young, but the place is already crowded, with just one seat at the bar still free.

A group of women are hanging out at the bar, eating, gossiping and teasing each other. They could be students, colleagues or factory workers, but in fact they work in the sex industry and this is their bar.

In 2006, a group of about 30 such workers pooled their money to open this place, which they decided to call Can Do. Together they raised about $30,000 to start their business, a place they envisioned that sex workers could work, free from exploitation and abuse, where they could court clients safely.

It's the only bar in Thailand of its kind.

"Sawatdee ka, would you care for a drink or anything, sir?" asks Fah, who at 22, is the youngest sex worker here.

With her long black hair and broad smile, she's leaning over the bar offering a customer a drink. In jeans and a T-shirt, she looks like a college student, but she has been working in the industry for three years, starting right after high school.

Fah say she enjoys her job. "We work only at night, then we can go freely anywhere in the daytime," she says. "We can travel, and we can also learn languages from our foreign clients."

Good working conditions

Mai Janta, who is in her early thirties, is the manager of Can Do. She says the bar is unique because its workers are well paid and treated with respect.

"And we have certain working hours," she says, "We close at midnight. We can take drink fees, and when the bar earns more than 2,500 baht $69.50 each night, we get an additional 10% income. Any tips from customers go directly to each worker."

Unlike other bars in the red light district, there are no high-heeled boots or frilly skirts here — and no naked dancing. Women at Can Do wear whatever they want.

Around 50 women are registered to work at the bar, but they can also work elsewhere if they choose. Usually they make between $30 and $50 a night, much higher than many other places.

Fah and Peung are talking about a karaoke parlor they worked in several years ago. They say they were paid only $3 to $4 a night, and sometimes had to work until 6 o'clock in the morning.

Peung started in this line of work after she got divorced six years ago, and she is very frank about her profession. People who come to help sex workers always do so with their own agenda, she says, usually starting from the premise that the work choice is bad and the industry's workers are victims of poverty or trafficking.

But that isn't always true, she says. "Journalists love a story about policemen cracking down to help those women," she says. "That's a great story, and many people take great credit for it. But have you ever asked those women if they want to be helped?"

Fah, Peung and others have all worked in bars and brothels where their salaries were docked if they gained weight, didn't smile enough, or if the patrons didn't buy them enough drinks.

The best way to help, they say, is to decriminalize the trade so that women aren't subject to the whims of rapacious employers.

"We just want to be under and protected by the labor law, recognized as regular workers," she says. "What we need is only social security, salary, some days off and equal rights."

Despite the social criticism they face for working in a taboo industry, Fah says they just have to shrug when the neighbors gossip.

"I let them talk, but I don't take it into account because doing so would just be to let myself down," she says. "No one can let you down if you don't allow them to."

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Society

Influencer Union? The Next Labor Rights Battle May Be For Social Media Creators

With the end of the Hollywood writers and actors strikes, the creator economy is the next frontier for organized labor.

​photograph of a smartphone on a selfie stick

Smartphone on a selfie stick

Steve Gale/Unsplash
David Craig and Stuart Cunningham

Hollywood writers and actors recently proved that they could go toe-to-toe with powerful media conglomerates. After going on strike in the summer of 2023, they secured better pay, more transparency from streaming services and safeguards from having their work exploited or replaced by artificial intelligence.

But the future of entertainment extends well beyond Hollywood. Social media creators – otherwise known as influencers, YouTubers, TikTokers, vloggers and live streamers – entertain and inform a vast portion of the planet.

✉️ You can receive our Bon Vivant selection of fresh reads on international culture, food & travel directly in your inbox. Subscribe here.

For the past decade, we’ve mapped the contours and dimensions of the global social media entertainment industry. Unlike their Hollywood counterparts, these creators struggle to be seen as entertainers worthy of basic labor protections.

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