Abstract

Touring Thailand's Sex Industry

This article presents information about the social conditions of women in Thailand involved in the sex industry. Sex workers are typically recruited from rural families, the sum given to the parents representing several months' advance salary, with the rest to be remitted after a ten-month or one-year term. The lump-sum payments provide subsistence for a family with few other resources, and may even finance a new house, cultivation of the family land or schooling for younger siblings. First World feminists are frequently criticized for culture-bound insensitivity to differences in the values, needs and desires of women in other parts of the world. However, one study estimates that 50 percent of the child prostitutes in Thailand are HIV positive.