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Sex slaves: trafficking of women in Asia

Chapter Six: The Management - part 1

Part 1: 6.1: Louise Brown never mentioning the cruel WOMEN in the brothel prison business -- 6.2: Statistics about brothels and brothel prisons -- 6.3: Networks working for brothels and brothel prisons - and NGOs -- 6.4: Brothel network in Japan - with Yakuza Japanese mafia - can be good or bad -- 6.5: Principle: shifting girls and young women from town to town -- 6.6: Brothel prison networks in India and in Nepal - Nepali women -- 6.7: Brothel prison networks with mafia and governments -- 6.8: Brothel prison networks in Bangladesh in Dhaka - closed big brothel prisons and  prostitution in streets and parks -- 6.9: More political leaders with brothel prisons: Cambodia, Burma and Pakistan -- 6.10: Calcutta: family members taking the earnings of the prostituted daughter -- 6.11: Northern Thailand: Selling daughters into prostitution for consumer goods -- 6.12: The minimum age for girls for working in the brothel -- 6.13: Bangladesh: trafficker systems - poverty is destroying any moral

by Louise Brown

presented and with subtitles by Michael  Palomino (2013)

6.1: Louise Brown never mentioning the cruel WOMEN in the brothel prison business

Men should be guilty for all - but in fact: WOMEN are the main factor of organizing prostitution

Prostitution is not a peripheral area of society. It is not simply a nasty, remote corner into which all the social, sexual and emotional detritus can be thrown and safely ignored. Prostitution is an essential part of the social fabric or most societies - and especially Asian societies. It is part of the weave and an organic part of social economic, political and cultural patterns. Directly or indirectly, it affects everyone.

Anything this important has to be lucrative. An enormous industry thrives by providing girls, young women and sometimes boys for sexual recreation. Yet the procurers, the agents [mostly women!], the traffickers and the brothel managers [mostly women!] are just the bit players in an epic drama written by men.

[WRONG: The main agitators for prostitution are women
The main agitators for prostitution are WOMEN
1: mothers are selling daughters to brothels and
2: 'seasoning' these daughters and young women for the clients breaking them the moral is proceded by woman brothel managers (mama-sans) and
3: brothels are mostly organized by women (mama-sans).

I don't know why writer Louise Brown is so blind for these FACTS that WOMEN ARE THE MAIN ORGANIZERS OF PROSTITUTION].

The rest of the cast [team of a play] is harder to identify. The leading roles are taken by people who do not appear on stage [the mothers selling their daughters] and the organizers never even get a mention in the credits [the women brothel owners 'seasoning' the girls and young women].

Dealing girls and women is easier than dealing arms or drugs

The Asian sex industry makes a lot of money for a lot of people. The biggest financial winners in this industry, as in any other, are the senior management and the major shareholders. The workers, as (p.156)

usual, get a very poor deal. As for the slaves, they do not get paid at all. Among the world's illegal and morally suspect businesses, the sex industry probably has one of the biggest financial turnovers. It is also a lot less risky than the other big time money-spinners like trafficking and dealing in arms and drugs. It is easier to traffic humans than it is to traffic drugs or guns and, although women's value steadily decreases with age and experience, the can, unlike drugs, be consumed by the punters [customers] time after time.


6.2: Statistics about brothels and brothel prisons

Statistics about profits in Asian sex industry

Several attempts have been made to gauge [measure] the economic size of parts of the sex industry in Asia. This kind of analysis is extremely difficult because the business is often hidden and illegal. Despite this qualification the figures suggested by the latest research indicate that the size of the commercial sex market in the region is vast. Yearly profits from the Japanese sex trade in the mid-1990s were thought to stand at around 4.2 trillion yen [1].

[1] T. Yunomae: "Commodified Sex: Japan's Pornographic Culture"; AMPO, vol. 24-4-vol. 26-1:55-9, 1995, cited in: Marjan Wijers and Lin Lap-Chew: Trafficking in Women, Forced Labor and Slavery-like Practices in Marriage, Domestic labor and Prostitution, p.55

Indonesia's sex industry accounted for between 0.8% and 2.4% of Gross Domestic Product during a similar period. Pasuk Phonogpaichit, a specialist on the economics of the Thai industry, estimates that profits from prostitution between 1993 and 1995 were around three times the size of profits from the drugs trade [2].

[2] Pasuk Phongpaichit, Sungsidh Piriyarangsan and Nualnoi Treerat: Guns, Girls, Gambling, Ganja: Thailand's Illegal Economy and Public Policy (Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books, 1998), p.8

There is less information on the South Asian industry but what little there is gives us a glimpse of the economics involved. In impoverished Calcutta alone, the sex industry has been estimated to generate around 720 million rupees (10 million English Pounds) each year [3].

[3] Indrani Sinha and Anindit Roy Chowdhury: Child Trafficking and Prostitution; unpublished paper

We can guarantee that the women who are held in sexual slavery see very little of this.

Sex slavery is not a big part of the sex industry's profit

Statistics such as these on financial turnover include all branches of the sex industry: they include the high-class market, and the mass market, plus profits form the industry's advertising department, pornography. The contribution that is made by the practice of sexual slavery to these profits is unknown, but is likely to be a relatively small proportion of the total. However, the economic significance of sexual slavery lies in the fact that it is an important way of initiating women into the industry throughout the region (p.157) [and selling of girls is performed by WOMEN mothers and initiation of women into the sex industry is also performed almost always by WOMEN].

Once they have been initiated and properly seasoned they are no longer defined as sex slaves. They become voluntary sex workers. [WOMEN are "forming" the product for the men].


6.3: Networks working for brothels and brothel prisons - and NGOs

Networks

Organized criminal networks control large sections of Asia's sex industry. In general they do not manage the day-to-day running of the industry but provide it with protection and take a substantial cut of the profits. Brothels and clubs in towns and cities could not operate without the consent of organized crime. Big gangland bosses do not make decisions on recruiting girls from the countryside. Nor do they decide on the methods of trafficking and who should become a sex slave. All these stages in the chain of supply are accomplished either informally or, alternatively, by the small fry in the criminal network. The result, however, is that girls who are recruited by minor traffickers through informal means will ultimately find themselves in brothels that are owned by big-time mafia-like organizations, or whose owners themselves pay homage - and cash - to criminal networks.

[Men and women in the "network"
These networks are of men and women. Writer Louise Brown does not make any indication about which part is more, but it can be assumed that it is at least half-half or women are even more involved in prostitution business than men].

Information is rare about the networks

Very little information is ever forthcoming from brothel managers and owners about the shadowy people and organizations associated with the sex trade. And it is not surprising. Those who speak out about the trade are the ones who invariably end up dead. It is significant and inevitable that less information on the sex trade is available in areas where there are very strong criminal networks and where these networks have strong political backing. Non-governmental organizations and human rights groups working on prostitution and trafficking are scarce in countries with weaker civil societies. It is no accident that these are also the countries with the most serious problems of organized crime, and of abuses in the sex industry too.

Networks in Islamic Pakistan - religious conservatism keeping prostitution secret

Pakistan has a thriving sex industry but, sadly, very few organizations working to combat it. Pakistan's authoritarian governments do not like NGOs who speak out about social issues because these are invariably political issues as well. Successive Pakistani governments have played the card of religious conservatism to mobilize support (p.158)

for their regimes and to deflect citizens' attention from their political and economic failings. A key aspect of this process, known as Islamization, is that greater restrictions have been placed upon women in the belief that such restrictions are an essential part of Islam. Associate with this is a greater rhetorical commitment towards conservative sexual morality. In this kind of environment debates about prostitution, and NGO activity on the issue, are anything but welcome.

NGOs in Pakistan - not much effect

What is more, other problems of gender discrimination and the generally abysmal treatment of women in Pakistan seem to attract the attention and energies of progressive NGOs. Women in prostitution are part of a much bigger and very depressing picture. Pakistan boasts a couple of organizations working on HIV intervention programs in Karachi, there are privately run shelters for distressed women, a few government-run homes, and a handful of good NGOs focusing on human rights and gender-related issues.

There is, however, nothing even vaguely comparable to the organizations that deal directly with prostituted women in India. Some NGOs exist on paper and a few have received money from donor organizations, but even limited field research reveals that women in a red light area such as Heera Mandi have had zero contact with those people supposedly fighting for their rights and for their access to health care. Presumably the funds had run out before the plucky [brave] teams had made it to the brothels. The donors must console themselves with the knowledge that the money was spent on offices, brochures and four-wheel-drive vehicles.

It is a similar story everywhere: plenty of people feed off the work of prostitutes. Sex work is an industry and, like all other major industries, it is not sealed off from the world around it.

NGOs in Thailand with activity in Bangkok and in the north of Thailand - organized crime stronger in the south

In Thailand NGOs working on trafficking and prostitution are concentrated in Bangkok and in the north. This is not because their work is not needed in the south of the country. In fact, abuses within the industry may well be even more severe in southern Thailand. However, organized crime is also stronger in the south and so there (p.159)

is far less opportunity to develop the activities of organizations promoting human rights and sex workers' rights.

NGOs in Japan confronted with Yakuza Japanese mafia

Awful abuses are perpetrated in Japan's enormous sex industry. Yet there are only a handful of small organizations working on sex-industry-related issues. Partly this is because highly conformist [adaptive] Japan does not have a long tradition of NGO activity and partly because the Yakuza tightly controls the industry and access to the women who work in it.

Brothel mafia in Taiwan and Hong Kong

The Taiwanese mafia and the Hong Kong triads also manage large sections of the sex industry in their own countries but perhaps not with quite the same degree of organizational sophistication and success as the Yakuza do in Japan.


6.4: Brothel network in Japan - with Yakuza Japanese mafia - can be good or bad

[As Japan is importing women for their brothels by air plane and by airport, all are over 18 years old].

Example: effective Yakuza giving precise rules for prostitutes in Japan

Ruthlessness and brutality are the two best descriptions of the way that the Yakuza manages the Japanese sex trade. A Thai prostitute who worked in Japan explained the management style of the Yakuza members who 'protected' the club where she worked:

<The  Yakuza are good if you obey all the rules. There are lots of rules and you have to learn them very quickly. If you are not good and you don't do what they say you get your throat cut and they don't give you a second chance. If you do exactly as they say and you earn a lot of money by going with clients and giving them what they want, they will treat you nicely. They are a lot better than Thai men.>

Example: Yakuza style making trembling the Thai prostitutes in the bar - punishment for not obeying

A Thai woman who was trafficked to Japan related her experiences of the Yakuza in a book which was published by a women's rights organization, and which tried to warn other young women about the dangers of going to Japan:

<Many times I had seen the Yakuza rush into the bar. Whenever they came in, we were all trembling with fear and wondered what was going to happen. They would throw the glasses away and kick chairs over. After they sat down, they (p.160)

would use their toes to call any woman to sit with them (the use of the feet in this way in Japanese and Thai culture is extremely rude. You would not do it to a human being) ... Occasionally, there were some women who ran away so the boss or the man who had selected and bought these women would pay a gang of Yakuza to trace them and return them for punishment. They would lock the woman up in a small room in which she had to sleep with any customers they commanded. If she disobeyed, she would have only one choice - death.> [4]

[4] Foundation for Women: Our Lives, Our Stories (Bangkok 1995), p. 29-31

The network of little brothels in Japan ('snacks')

The vast majority of women who are trafficked to Japan will end up in a 'snack' that has Yakuza connections. This is because the Yakuza and the sex industry are inseparable. A study undertaken by the International Organization for Migration, of one hundred Filipina women who were trafficked to Japan, found that forty-six of the women were aware of the involvement of the Yakuza in the process [5].

[5] International Organization for Migration: Trafficking in Women to Japan for Sexual Exploitation: A Survey on the Case of Filipino Women (Geneva 1997), p.37

In all likelihood the real rate of Yakuza involvement is probably even higher.

[Not all ladies indicated knowing about Yakuza for sure because the Yakuza's extortions are lethal].

The stricter the immigration rules - the more mafia is taking part in trafficking the girls and women for the brothels

Organized crime's connection with the international trafficking of women for prostitution is not surprising, and it is not new. In the nineteenth century, Chinese secret societies - the forerunners of today's Triads - were heavily involved in the trafficking of women. Today, in those more economically developed parts of Asia that have strict immigration policies, it is essential for the trafficking business to be well organized. This is especially true of trafficking to Japan.

From Thailand to Japan: trafficking by Thai WOMEN in connection with Yakuza mafia - no direct collaboration between Thai and Japanese mafia

Typically the process of recruitment is subcontracted out. Girls in Thailand will not be recruited directly by the Yakuza. Instead they find their way into the sex industry's web through existing Thai networks. They are then recruited for the Japanese sex industry by Yakuza-affiliated traffickers. Often these are Thai women who have close links to a Yakuza member. Perhaps they are the wife or mistress of a Yakuza boss whom they may have met when they themselves (p.161)

were working as prostitutes and entertainers in Japan. In general the Yakuza do not work with the Thai mafia. In part this is because the Japanese consider the Thais to be unreliable. In part it is because they would have to contend with inevitable squabbles [quarrels] over status and precedence in the criminal hierarchy, and partly it is because any loss of control over the business can lead to a dilution [reduction] of profits.

Different branches of the Yakuza compete with one another as well as with different branches of their Taiwanese and Chinese competitors. Kabukicho, Tokyo's main red light area, is a scene of intense international competition between criminal gangs.

Thai and Taiwanese mama-sans managing Japanese brothels - mafia members are inspecting the brothels from time to time

The clubs that these organizations control, here and throughout Japan, are not micro-managed by Japanese men. This is left to mama-sans [women brothel managers] usually from Thailand and Taiwan. These are the people whom the trafficked women deal with on a daily basis. A gangland member or the owner - typically an important figure in the underworld - makes periodic visits to collect dues [shares] and to make sure the business is on a sound footing.

Example: nice Yakuza boss - but with threats of killing

This was how a Thai woman described the management structure:

<Our big boss was an important man. I think he was Yakuza. But we didn't see him very often. He was quite young and he would come in expensive clothes and call in and talk to the people in the club. We were always nervous when he was in the club. He walked round and looked at us and the club. He talked to the mama-san and to the men who worked there for security. If the mama-san was angry with a girl she told the boss and then the girl was in big trouble. Most of the time he was really nice to us but if he was angry he used to kick us and say he would get some of the boys to kill us.>

Example: Yakuza boss defrauding the Thai prostitute massively before the flight home to Thailand

A number of women do not have bad memories of working in Japan but they were shocked by what the Yakuza did when they left the country. This Thai woman complained of being cheated (p.162)

<I went to Japan to work in a club and was promised 230,000 yen (1,350 English Pounds). I went on a three-month tourist visa and worked as a hostess (i.e. prostitute). The work was hard but was better than being in Thailand. Then when I had finished the three months I was taken to Narita (Tokyo's international airport) and the man from the Yakuza only gave me 60,000 yen (350 English Pounds).>

As the woman's ticket home was already booked, and as her visa had expired, she could not stay to argue her case.

Japan with visa questions for Thai and Filipina prostitutes

Lots of women who are trafficked to Japan do have a legitimate visa. They arrive with a three-month entertainer's visa. These visas are supposed to be granted to artists with recognized talents and professional qualifications. In practice, if a girl is trafficked by a Yakuza-linked network, she can be given an entertainer's visa providing that she has enough talent to walk. The power of Yakuza money makes this possible as does alleged corruption within the Japanese immigration department.

[This collaboration for prostitutes from abroad exists also in European states - is nothing special].

Japan with forged passports - high cost and debts for the prostitute - with interest payments

Others arrive on false passports. A roaring trade is done in Thailand and in Taiwan where specialist agencies produce counterfeit passports and visas. The price of this documentation is high and the cost will be added to the debt that the woman has to repay once she is in Japan [debt bondage extortion]. The biggest financial beneficiaries of this arrangement, of course, are the forgery departments of the criminal networks and the brothel owners who demand interest payments on the debt.


6.5: Principle: shifting girls and young women from town to town

Shifting of girls and young women from town to town in Japan

Some brothels are part of large networks. For example, in Japan girls are moved from one 'snack' to another in order to provide a steady stream of new bodies for the novelty-seeking clients.

[This "shifting" of girls and young women from town to town exists also in Europe - is nothing special].

Several women reported being moved between a number of different towns in the space of a few months. Sometimes these were transfers and exchanges between brothels that were operated by a single owner or organization. Sometimes it was as a result of direct selling and then re-selling of women between loosely affiliated snacks.

Shifting of girls and young women from town to town in Thailand

A similar (p.163)

practice occurs in Thailand. Girls arriving from Burma, for example, spend around six months in the brothels of [frontier] towns like Mae Sai. They are then moved south to work in brothels in Chiang Mai, Phuket or Bangkok or in a host of other towns that have sex establishments belonging to the same owner or network.

In less-developed Asia the control that crime syndicates have over the sex industry is not as extensive. Like much else in these countries, the sex industry runs along an ad hoc and often confused path. The reach of the sex industry is extensive but often much of the groundwork is done by the forces of poverty and not by the underlings of organized crime.

[Mostly MOTHERS are selling the girls, and mostly WOMEN are seasoning the girls].

6.6: Brothel prison networks in India and in Nepal - Nepali women

Networks in India and Nepal - brothel owner's families making a good profit

The dons of the Indian criminal networks would not have to bother making provision for complicated trafficking arrangements. All this is handled at a very low level of management, in part because the legal complexities of trafficking women into Japan or Singapore do not have to be addressed in laces like India. In India, however, the trafficking of Nepali girls from established prostitute-recruiting grounds is sometimes very well organized right from the girl's home to the brothel. Maiti Nepal, a Kathmandu-based NGO that works to prevent trafficking and to rescue girls from prostitution, has been able to identify networks of traffickers run by Mumbai brothel owners. Many of these owners are Nepali women - some of them former sex workers themselves - who transport girls out of Nepal and then profit from their exploitation as sex slaves in Indian brothels. Anuradha Koirala, who runs Maiti Nepal, a shelter for prostitutes returning from India, claims that the profits are sufficient for these brothel owners to own luxurious houses in Kathmandu, to drive air-conditioned cars and to send their children to expensive private schools.


6.7: Brothel prison networks with mafia and governments

If brothels are synonymous with organized crime, then organized crime cannot operate without the connivance of politicians. In large parts of Asia - as in the rest of the world - there is a symbiotic relationship between gangsters and politicians.

[Supplement: There are many WOMEN gangsters in this brothel business - and of course, writer Louise Brown is not mentioning this!!!]

In some places you (p.164)

might have good cause to think that they were the same people.

[The woman Minister of Education is the manager of brothels, or the male Minister of Economy is the manager of brothels].

To give just a couple of examples: the Japanese Yakuza is reported to have high-level support within the political system and most Pakistani politicians are believed to be corrupt.

[But corruption is everywhere, also without brothels, also in Europe a big concealed corruption by industry and lobbyists, also for brothels].

The strength of the links between the sex industry, organized crime [in the case of sold daughters mostly mothers, and in the case of "seasoned" girls and young women mostly WOMEN brothel owners] and the political world is based on the power of the purse [money bag]. [And poverty is organized by the governments not organizing social institutions]. Political success is largely dependent upon finance. Asia is no exception to this.

[But many governments don't want any success but poor people is easily to govern, they think. This is never mentioned by writer Louise Brown].

What is more, aspiring politicians, and even established ones, cannot go around upsetting important people. The people who manage and profit from the sex industry, and other forms of organized crime, are just such important people.


6.8: Brothel prison networks in Bangladesh in Dhaka - closed big brothel prisons and prostitution in streets and parks

The pattern found in Dhaka, Bangladesh is replicated elsewhere, albeit [although] with minor variations in line with cultural practice and levels of economic development. Organized crime has a foothold in all parts of the city and criminal gangs exert a significant degree of control over some neighborhoods. Local leaders, businessmen and even religious figures may be in the pay of the network. Others may be intimidated into compliance and support. At election time this translates into backing for a particular political candidate with whom the leaders of these gangs know that they can come to some harmonious arrangement.

In some instances this informal agreement is not necessary because the gangland leader may be the political candidate. In most cases, however, the meshing of the political and criminal worlds translates into votes for favored candidates because gangland-leaders have large vote banks at their disposal. Duly elected politicians then have an obligation and a vested interest in allowing the activities of the underworld to carry on unhindered - except, of course, for the occasional crackdown to give the impression that they are active in the fight against crime.

[To this "underworld" of brothel prisons belong also many WOMEN].

Building owners

Gangland bosses control the sex industry in Dhaka and in Bangladesh's other large brothel areas. These men have enormous power and leverage [influence]. In woefully [miserably] poor Bangladesh they are rich. They control the sex industry not by running brothels but by owning the (p.165)

buildings in which they operate and by extracting a variety of charges from the women working there. The houses are rented out to tenants who then sublet the rooms to brothel managers [women] who in turn recruit prostitutes.

[WOMEN brothel managers are torturing and extorting and keeping the young women and the girls in the brothel prison].

This practice of having the real owners of brothels hidden behind several curtains of tenants and sub-tenants is very common in South Asia. In cities like Mumbai, politicians and leading figures are rumored to own buildings in red light areas. In a legal sense the owners do not operate brothels: they only own houses in which brothels are run. But this is a poor defense, especially when the owners wield so much power and know exactly what is occurring in their property.

Dhaka: Kandupatti brothel prison installed by British colonialist government

The fate of the Kandupatti brothel in central Dhaka provides an interesting example of the way in which this power can be used. Kandupatti was a large brothel housing about five hundred women and girls and had been established by the British during the colonial period. It was overcrowded, unsanitary and typical of the worst type South Asia can offer. Girls shared tiny dingy [poor] rooms and most of the women who worked there had been physically coerced into the trade or forced into the business by acute poverty. Almost all had started work when they were children. Kandupatti, in other words, was like lots of Bangladeshi brothels.

Dhaka: Kandupatti owner Mumtaz Begum taking 'savings'

It became different, however, when the women in Kandupatti began to challenge the power of the influential man who owned and controlled the area. Mumtaz Begum, a leader of the Kandupatti Council of Evicted [eliminated] Sex Workers, explains that this man extracted 'savings' from the women and portrayed himself as a kind charitable financial institution aiding the prostitutes.

Dhaka: Mumtaz Begum not giving 'savings' back when he became powerful politician - closing down Kandupatti brothel - prostitutes in the streets and in the park

But when he became a successful politician and refused to hand back any of the women's savings, trouble began to brew [boil]. The result was that in May 1997, the brothel was suddenly closed down. A local citizens' movement was orchestrated to rid the neighborhood of the undesirable women and religious sentiments were mobilized to turn the endeavor into a virtuous crusade. A community that had tolerated a large brothel (p.166)

in its midst for over a century shut it down within a day. The women did not even have time to collect their personal belongings. This was not because the community had suddenly become hostile to the concept of commercial sex; many of its men, after all, had been regular clients of the brothel and local traders profited from the women's money. Instead, the brothel was closed because the landlord had withdrawn his favor. He must have calculated that there were easier ways to generate a profit from the prime site land than renting it out to troublesome prostitutes who demanded the return of their money.

The local opinion-formers and religious leaders then followed his lead. The effect of this clampdown on vice is that the dispossessed women of Kandupatti now live in the streets and they service men in the filth of the gutter and in the park. Is this supposed to have been a victory for virtue? [6]

[6] Based on a presentation by, and an interview with, Mumtaz Begum and the women of Kandupatti Council of Evicted Sex Workers, Dhaka, Bangladesh

[The probable combination of reasons for shutting down the brothel prison of Kandupatti
The precise reason for shutting down the brothel prison is not given. But it can be that there was a combination
-- of NGOs
-- of religious movements
-- of the feeling that Bangladesh should eliminate prostitution centers which were installed by the English colonialists
-- and the point with the 'savings' was only the last point in this game].

Dhaka: two more brothels shut down: Tanbazar and Nimtoli damaging the opposition damaging their profits from their brothels - and by religious feelings

Two years after the closure of Kandupatti, the Tanbazar and Nimtoli brothels [brothel prisons] near Narayanganj were also shut down with similar speed and lack of concern for the welfare of the inmates. These brothels contained an estimated three thousand women [probably also some of Kandupatti brothel which was closed 2 years before] and, just as in the case of Kandupatti, their closure had far more to do with politics and the mechanics of the criminal underworld than worries over the conditions under which the women worked.

Supporters of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party controlled the Tanbazar and Nimtoli brothels. The MP [Member of Parliament] for the area, however, was Shamim Osman, a member of the ruling Awami League. Shutting down the brothels was seen as a legitimate way in which to weaken the political opposition within his constituency and to deprive it of the considerable financial resources generated by the sex industry [7].

[7] 'Tanbazar Alert'; report by the Network of Sex Work Projects, August 1999

Interestingly, MP Osman commented that 'prayers were offered at mosques in the town for the closure of the two brothels ... It was a long-felt demand of the people of the town.'

Presumably not all the pious citizens were equally enthusiastic about the closure: three thousand prostitutes require more than a handful of clients.


6.9: More political leaders with brothel prisons: Cambodia, Burma and Pakistan

In some countries the established leaders of society are big-time (p.167)

players in the sex industry. And this is not just as consumers but also as owners and managers. In places where the democratic process is weak, high-ranking military and government officials are involved in running the sex industry. In Cambodia, Burma and Pakistan, for instance, there is no real clear line of demarcation between the criminal underworld and the respectable world supposedly above it. They merge into one.

Traffickers extorting the local politicians

Local politicians frequently offer de facto support to traffickers and to key figures in the sex industry because they have no alternative. Prostitution is woven into the fabric of society. It is woven into economic patterns. It is therefore logical that it is woven into the political fabric too. It is a seamless web. Politicians, sex industry bosses and criminal networks are parts of a power structure that constantly reinforces itself. They do not care about women in prostitution because these women are considered unimportant and disposable - even though they are also profitable.

Nepal: politicians let the sex business go

In Nepal the member of parliament who represents a constituency with one of the worst reputations for trafficking girls to India has been in the business of politics for years. He is a powerful and influential man. It is thought that he could help to reign in trafficking within his constituency of he wished. He does not do so because this action would upset the balance of power within his carefully cultivated and managed constituency. His political opponents are not much better. They will not, for example, go on record [say in a police station] as saying that families sell their daughters into prostitution. Political expediency [reasonable behavior] requires them to be mindful [with attention] of the public's sensitivities. Families are therefore described as being duped [defrauded] and girls are the unwitting [unwilling] victims of depraved [bad] Indians.

[Writer Louise Brown is concealing one more time the impossible life conditions for poor people in Asia, and love is forbidden in Asia, and she is not condemning mothers selling daughters and is NEVER condemning the WOMEN brothel owners "seasoning" and torturing and extorting the girls and women...]

Not all politicians are corrupt and not all are willing to ignore the unhappy fate of the poorest and most vulnerable women they represent. But we can guarantee that many of those who preach conservative moral values, and who would be the first to condemn prostitution, will also be supported indirectly by criminality of some kind. And if they are supported by criminal networks they will also (p.168)

be supported indirectly by the sex industry: It is unjust to condemn all Asian politicians for being involved in systems of sexual slavery but far, far too many are complicit [take part].

[But the criminal WOMEN selling daughters and arranging the criminal WOMEN arranging the brothel prisons are not mentioned...]

This charge can be laid at the feet of many people who benefit either directly or indirectly from the practice of forced prostitution. We can include in this a whole range of services that cater to sex workers as consumers and to the customers of sex workers during their visit to the brothel. We can also include the communities who benefit from the sale of women's bodies. When we look at the management of the sex industry we have to look a lot further than just the brothel hierarchy and the traffickers. Girls and women are exploited not just by clients, brothel owners and managers, they are exploited by an entire society and sometimes even by their own families.

[Poverty is organized so the families are selling their daughters and WOMEN mama-sans are torturing and extorting the daughters. Poverty can be overcome by social institutions - which depend mostly on WOMEN politicians and they don't do ANYTHING].

6.10: Calcutta: family members taking the earnings of the prostituted daughter

Indian mothers and brothers visiting the prostituted daughter in Calcutta for money - even enlarging the debt of the prostitute!

Brothel managers in Calcutta claim that the mothers and brothers of girls from impoverished families in Murshidabad [at the western Bangladeshi border] visit the brothels periodically to ask for money. Sometimes this will be part of the money that the girl has earned and sometimes it will be an 'advance' on her earnings and the sum will then be added to her debt.

Nepali fathers and brothers visiting the prostituted daughter in Calcutta brothel for money - similar behavior in Thailand

The male relatives of girls from Nepal's Nuwakot and Sindhupalchowk districts visit the brothels every few years to collect their young relatives' earnings.

A similar phenomenon is seen in Thailand. It is very difficult for an outsider, living the comfortable life of a middle-class academic in a developed country, to criticize the decisions taken by families living in destitution [misery, respectively poverty in the countryside is organized by the government deliberately rejecting any inversion in the countryside]. Ethically it is untenable [not acceptable]. But equally, it is also difficult to draw a dividing line between those whose poverty can in some way excuse the otherwise morally inexcusable decision to send a child into prostitution and those who can afford not to [do].

[Poverty can be eliminated by social institutions, schooling and balancing of funds - but the Asian governments don't want to take earnest the population in the countryside. They want rather poverty and sold daughters as it seems, for policemen, militaries, businessmen etc. ...]

6.11: Northern Thailand: Selling daughters into prostitution for consumer goods

The measurement of poverty is flexible and open to many interpretations. I can say with confidence, however, that some families sell a child into prostitution not to avoid starvation but, instead, to buy consumer goods (p.169).

This question is very relevant in northern Thailand where whole communities are sustained by the prostitution of daughters. This is not part of the sub-culture of an underclass but is a major feature of normal society in many villages. It involves the police, the schools, the temples and the village leaders. It is part of the power structure. Only twenty kilometers from the Thai-Burmese border there is a village in which the daughter of the headman has joined her school friends as a prostitute in Bangkok. Sompop Jantraka of the Daughters' Education Program estimates that in many of the villages of northern Thailand one third of families have daughters in prostitution. No one speaks out about this because everyone benefits: families can build nice houses and offset the losses from unsustainable farms, and priests do not condemn the money that sex workers give as donations to build temples and to do meritorious works. Just like anywhere else, the people with power in northern Thailand's villages are the people with money. Unfortunately, anyone with money here almost invariably  has links to the sex industry because there is so little opportunity to earn money in any other sector.

[because the Thai government is racist against the population in the countryside and let them without industries and without good jobs. Other Asian governments do the same. Other governments in Central and South "America" are doing the same racism against the population in the countryside...]

Finance from the sex trade creates, legitimizes and reinforces a power structure that tells young women that prostitution is the only way to escape poverty.

[because the industrial bosses of the country never install industries with good jobs in the countryside. The governments are deliberately rejecting any investment in the countryside provoking that there is a constant influx of young women to the brothels which are managed by the criminal governments and criminal police commanders].

6.12: The minimum age for girls for working in the brothel

An appalling perspective on the link between poverty and the legitimization of prostitution among the desperate is illustrated by an interview that was given to Justice Kirby, the UN Human Rights Ambassador to Cambodia, in 1995. A brothel owner was reported as agreeing that the minimum age for girls entering prostitution should be eighteen.

[But: In a tropical climate this age of 18 is unrealistic when there is no school, when early love is forbidden, and when there is a big poverty in the countryside which is not eliminated by the industrial bosses and social institutions].

However, she claimed this principle was difficult for her and her peers to adhere to [to fulfill this rule] because it was very hard to refuse the pleading of impoverished parents who wanted their young daughters to start work in the brothel [8].

[8] Cited in Jacqui Dunn and Tuol Kork Dike Clinic Staff: 'Demographics, Working Practices and AIDS Awareness of Commercial Sex Workers in Tuol Kork Dike Area?; In: Cambodia Disease Bulletin No. 6, May 1995, p.17

[Parents in poor regions just go the wrong way sending their daughters into prostitution instead of organizing more work in the countryside making pressure against the lazy governments and industry bosses].

6.13: Bangladesh: trafficker systems - poverty is destroying any moral

In Bangladesh there are occasional reports of traffickers being beaten to death by members of local communities [9].

[9] Ishrat Shamim and Farah Kabir: Child Trafficking: The Underlying Dynamics (Dhaka: Center for Women and Children's Studies, 1998), p.40

On the other hand, there are significantly more instances in which the local (p.170)

communities know of, and ignore, the activities of trafficking gangs. A research survey conducted by the Center for Women and Children's Study based in Dhaka discovered a profound reluctance [to dislike] on the part of local people to divulge [give] information on suspected traffickers [10].

[10] In conversation with Professor Ishrat Shamim, University of Dhaka

This suggests that people were either ignorant of the process, intimidated into silence or were protecting those involved. I suspect that it was the last of these reasons: traffickers are shielded because it is a local business from which lots of people benefit. In the thick of poverty, high-minded ethical sentiments about trafficking and prostitution are a redundant [superfluous] luxury (p.171).

[Whole buddism is not using anything when poverty is that extreme like in Asia - prostitution is dominating the Asian continent and buddism is just a giant lie].

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