Click to agree to our updated Privacy Policy and Use of Cookies. The government estimates there are 77, prostitutes in the country, while NGOs say the figure is closer to ,, 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 , a group of about 30 such workers pooled their money to open this place, which they decided to call Can Do. 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. 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. 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. Fah and Peung are talking about a karaoke parlor they worked in several years ago. 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.
