More from my reading in Disposable People by Kevin Bales. This is a little bit of what life looks like for sex slaves in Thailand.

PART 2

Who owns slaves?
It would appear that slaves are owned by pimps, madams, and brothel keepers; however, those people are just employees of the slave owners. They are paid a wage by the slave owner and also earn income through padding prices for food, drinks, and prostitutes and pocketing the difference. As Bales notes, it’s “a great income for an ex-peasant whose main skills are violence and intimidation.” Pimps and madams are the faces that slaves see every day, and they’re the hands that inflict violence and demand submission.

The brokers and agents who recruit slaves from rural areas to the cities are also employees of the slave owners. Many of them do this as a side job in addition to working as police officers, government officials, or teachers. Their day jobs give them credibility when recruiting young women. Some of the brokers are women who were once sold themselves. Now in middle age, they can no longer be prostitutes, but have no support or skills for another life; as agents, the slave owners offer them a chance to earn a living.

The true slave owners are usually middle-aged businessmen who invest in human capital as well as other investments. These slave owners feel no need to justify their human investment. Their distance from the lives of women in brothels allows them to view prostitutes as stocks or bonds, simply a way to invest. Their friends and neighbors may not even know them as slave owners. Just like investing in the stock market, slave owners gain the benefit without doing the work. Bales explains that “the work of the modern slaveholder is best seen not as aberrant criminality but as a perfect example of disinterested capitalism.” Influence by Western capitalism and the Thai’s moral obligation to build the economy, slaveholders often feel proud of their work.

Economics of a brothel
Expenses for a brothel include rent, utilities, food and drink (for workers and customers), salary for the pimp and others, bribes, taxi payments, and alcohol for customers. Bales estimates these expenses at $10,280 a month. They earn money primarily through commercial sex. (Bales’s figures, based on his research of typical brothels, estimate income for 20 women taking 14 customers a day, at 125 baht per client, for 30 days.) Income also comes from rent paid by prostitutes and the “interest” paid on their debts, sale of condoms (which the brothel gets from the government for free), sale of drinks, and what is known as virgin premium, the higher price assigned to younger or younger looking girls.  (Virgins are more valuable for several reasons: because they’re less likely to have diseases and because certain culture think that sex with a virgins will give vitality and health. A young slave will often be sold as “virgin” multiple times.) Bales estimates the monthly profit for one brothel at $88,000. One particular brothel earns about 856% on its expenses. This extreme profitability drives human trafficking.

The life of an enslaved prostitute
Enslaved prostitutes generally serve working class men. (Prostitutes who work for richer clients usually are not enslaved.) As a result, enslaved prostitutes are not much different than their clients: they are poor and often come from the same people groups. The demand for affordable prostitutes drives the kidnap and sale of poor women. The cheap price of a slave gives the owners and pimps little reason to take care of them.

Enslaved prostitutes face the daily threat of violence and disease. Immediately upon being brought to a brothel women are subjected to violence that leaves them in paralyzing shock. This is even more traumatic for the younger girls who have less understanding of what is happening to them. Violence early on is the key for pimps to create a submissive work force. From then on violence usually comes often, sometimes in response to unhappy customers, sometimes without reason.

The women also soon find that escape is impossible. Many people might object to the word impossible, but without funds or education and with the police working as a slave-catching force, unaided escape is unattainable. If an enslaved prostitute does try to escape, the pimp or the police will seek her out and beat her, usually in front of the other women in the brothel. If the police find her, they’ll abuse her at the station before sending her back to the brothel for violence from the pimp. After beatings, pimps often lock women in closets or basements with out food, perhaps even for days. Then it’s back to work.

Bales sums up the women’s response to violence: “The reaction to this abuse takes many forms: lethargy, aggression, self-loathing and suicide attempts, confusion, self-abuse, depression, full-blown psychoses, and hallucinations.” Trafficked women suffer for the rest of their lives. They struggle to trust and build relationships, even after they’re no longer slaves. Most aid workers and organizations simply don’t have the skills and resources to combat these deep psychological problems.

Pimps also use drugs and manipulation to control women. Some women who are rescued from brothels go back willingly because of the addictions. Pimps also play on the insecurity of the women and their presumed duty to their families.

Trafficked women also face health risks. AIDS is an epidemic all over Thailand. It’s estimated that 90% of all sex workers have AIDS, and that rate is probably higher in enslaved prostitutes because of poorer working conditions and fewer resources and regulations. Other infections and illnesses that are rampant make women even more prone to AIDS. Improperly administered birth control and botched abortions pose serious health risks as well. If a woman becomes too ill to work, the pimps abandon her and often her family won’t care for her either.

Slaves from Laos and Burma and those sent abroad
The same economic boom that has fueled slavery, though, is creating greater opportunities for people in northern Thailand. Education is more widespread, through schools and television. More and more individual women and whole communities are unwilling to sell daughters. Even sisters of women in brothels are unwilling for following in their sister’s footsteps—and they’re able to make that choice. While this is good news for these women and their communities, it doesn’t stop slave owners from pursuing a cheap workforce.

The diminishing availability of Thai women simply means that slave owners send their agents elsewhere for women to traffic. As a result they import slaves from Burma and Laos and other countries. These women are in the same violent situation as Thai women in brothels, but they have the added confusion of language. Their escape or rescue are even more treacherous because of their convoluted legal status and the added layer of corrupt officials they’d have to surmount to get back home. At the border many women are taken into custody, abused, re-enslaved, or left in the wilderness to find their own way.

Thailand also exports slaves to Japan, Europe, and America. While all their situations are different, they’re still subjected to fear and abuse. Brokers use lies to entrap the women and to conceal their actions from foreign officials.