Thailand launches national sex industry debate

[TimeWarp]

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/11/27/1069825923532.html?from=storyrhs

November 28, 2003

Thailand launched an unprecedented national debate yesterday on what to do about its billion dollar sex industry, which stimulates rampant corruption and draws swarms of foreign tourists.

There were immediate calls for the industry, outlawed in 1960 but still expanding, to be legalised as the Justice Ministry summoned 300 people to a public forum and invited the media to watch the debate.

"The government should license brothels," Anan Atpruang, the owner of a gay massage parlour, told the forum. "Then we can eliminate the vicious circle of bribery and illegitimate sources of income."

"There are at least 250,000 prostitutes working nationwide and each of them has to feed at least 10 people in their families," said Waraporn Intarat of the prostitute-advocate group Empower, another one of those calling for legalisation.

But Justice Minister Phongthep Thepkanjana told Reuters legalisation was not on the immediate agenda and the purpose of launching the debate was to get a sense of what Thailand's 63 million people thought should be done about the industry.

"It is a serious matter," Phongthep said, adding his ministry wanted the public to come up with ideas.

"We are not thinking about legalising prostitution," he said. "If we have a better system for dealing with the matter, then we can amend our law. But we don't know exactly when that might happen."

Thailand has thousands of brothels masquerading as go-go bars, cocktail lounges, karaoke bars and massage parlours.

No-one is sure how much money rolls through them, but one researcher has written that the sex industry's turnover could be higher than 40 billion baht ($A1.39 billion) a year.

Police generally turn a blind eye to the business, but they are widely accused of taking hefty bribes to keep it that way.

The government is not even sure how many men and women sex workers there are in Thailand. Different government agencies come up with numbers between 100,000 to 300,000.

Reuters