"Child prostitutes available at $100 a night...
The human cost of junta's repression
Military officials profiting from sex industry
as sleazy trade flourishes amid poverty and misrule"
This is common in Many SE Asian countries, not just Myanmar
The article below is 'soft' propaganda
intended to further discredit Myanmar's repressive regime
Burmese girls prepare for work at
a massage parlour in the Chinese border
town of Jiegao — part of the regional sex trade.
Sex work is usually better paid than most of
the options available to young, often uneducated women,
in spite of the stigma and danger attached to the work
In all four of the countries studied,
sex work provided significantly higher
earnings than other forms of unskilled labour
In many cases, sex work is often the only
viable alternative for women in communities
coping with poverty, unemployment, failed marriages
and family obligations in the nearly
complete absence of social welfare programmes
For single mothers with children,
it is often a more flexible, remunerative and
less time-consuming option than factory or service work
Burma or Myanmar? The military junta that took control of the country in 1962 changed its English name from Burma to Myanmar in 1989.
The change was part of an effort to phase out the English spellings of native words used during the time of British colonial rule.The Sex Industry in SE Asia [Original]
The sex industry is assuming massive proportions in Southeast Asia. Economic incentives and hardships fuel the growth of the sex sector. Migrant women, children are particularly vulnerable to commercial sexual exploitation.
A report from the International Labour Organisation [ILO], entitled The Sex Sector: The economic and social bases of prostitution in Southeast Asia
Prostitution in Southeast Asia has grown so rapidly in recent decades that the sex business has assumed the dimensions of a commercial sector.
One that contributes substantially to employment and national income in the region, according to a new report published by the Geneva-based International Labour Office.
The ILO stresses that whereas adults could choose sex work as an occupation, children are invariably victims of prostitution. "Child prostitution differs from - and should be considered a much more serious problem than - adult prostitution."
Children, in contrast to adults, "are clearly much more vulnerable and helpless against the established structures and vested interests in the sex sector, and much more likely to be victims of debt bondage, trafficking, physical violence or torture.
Commercial sexual exploitation is such a serious form of violence against children that there are lifelong and life-threatening consequences."
As with adult prostitution, it is not possible to have precise figures on the extent of child prostitution. A 1997 report put the number of child victims of prostitution at 75,000 in the Philippines.
In Thailand, a 1993 estimate was between 30,000 to 35,000 child prostitutes. In Indonesia, a 1992 survey found that one-tenth of the prostitutes were below 17 years and of those who were older, more than a fifth said they had started working before the age of 17.
In Malaysia, more than half of those "rescued" from various sex establishments were under 18 years.
More recently, there are reports of a similar situation in Mayanmar. This has become linked to the West's sanctimony over the repressive regime in that country. The following article is an example of 'soft' propaganda against the regime.
The article fails to point out that child prostitution is common in Many SE Asian countries, as well as countries in the west.
Child prostitution risks growing as poverty and unemployment strain family income and contribute to the expanding ranks of street children who are an increasingly common sight on the streets of cities worldwide.
It is not just a phenomenon in Myanmar. Bear this in mind while reading the article.'Soft' Anti-Myanmar Propaganda [Original]
Child prostitutes available at $100 a night...The human cost of junta's repression. Military officials profiting from sex industry as sleazy trade flourishes amid poverty and misrule.
This is a side of life the Burmese military junta might prefer you did not see: girls who appear to be 13 and 14 years old paraded in front of customers at a nightclub where a beauty contest thinly veils child prostitution.
Tottering in stiletto heels and miniskirts, young teenage girls criss-crossed the dance-floor as part of a nightly "modelling" show at the Asia Entertainment City nightclub on a recent evening in Rangoon.
Some girls stared at the floor while others tugged self-consciously on short hemlines, stretching the flimsy material a few centimetres longer as they catwalked awkwardly to the accompaniment of blasting hip-hop music.
Watching these young entertainers of the "Cherry-Sexy Girls" model groups were a few male customers, and a far larger crowd of Burmese sex workers, mostly in their late teens and early 20s, who sat at low tables in the darkness of the club.
Escorting several girls to a nearby table of young men, a waiter said the show was not so much modelling as marketing.
"All the models are available," the waiter said, adding that the youngest girls ask $100 (£48.50) to spend a night with a customer, while the older girls and young women in the audience could be bargained down for a lot less.
Prostitution, particularly involving children, is a serious crime in military-ruled Burma, but girls taken from the club would have no problem with the authorities, the waiter assured the company, but did not explain why not.
It would seem that prostitution is one of the few things the Burmese military, fresh from its recent crushing of pro-democracy demonstrations by Buddhist monks, is still willing to tolerate.
Information on the Burmese sex trade is extremely limited, as NGOs and other organisations can not conduct proper research within the country, said Patchareeboon Sakulpitakphon at the Bangkok offices of the international organisation Ecpat, whose acronym stands for End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes.
As a result of the restrictions, what is known is limited to a "basic picture based on what victims have said, and information that leaks out," Ms Patchareeboon wrote in an email.
But, she added, the information available indicates that "[child] sex tourism is emerging in Burma as well as the development of the sex industry".
Rights abuses
Burma is already a big source country for people trafficked to the regional sex trade.
"The junta's gross economic mismanagement, human rights abuses and its policy of using forced labour are the top causal factors for Burma's significant trafficking problem," the US state department noted in its 2007 trafficking report.
Disastrous economic policies pursued by the military have hobbled this resource-rich nation and hundreds of thousands have left the country to seek their fortunes elsewhere.
With an estimated annual income of just $220 a head among Burma's 52 million people, fleeing the country to work elsewhere is all too common.
For many, their effort to escape leads them into the hands of human traffickers and the sex trade in Thailand, China, Malaysia, Macau and elsewhere, according to the state department.
On a recent night in Rangoon, a boisterous group of sex workers trawled a hotel bar for customers.
Lin Lin, 22, and Thin Thin, 24 - names commonly used by sex workers in Burma - said they did not normally work in hotel bars, but the 10pm curfew in the wake of the pro-democracy protests had shut down the late-night clubs and forced them to new venues to find customers.
With a mother, father and young brothers and sisters to support, Lin said that prostitution was not such a difficult choice. "Sometimes I can earn $40 from one customer," she explained, speaking in good English.
This was just her night job, she said, adding that she was in her second year at university, studying to become "an advocate of the law".
Thin Thin said she was a hairdresser during the day, but sleeping with men, particularly foreign tourists, paid far more than either could earn by legitimate work.
With one of the most serious HIV epidemics in Southeast Asia - an estimated 360,000 Burmese people were living with HIV at the end of 2005, according to the UN - Thin Thin said she took no chances, and pulled several condoms from the pocket of her faded jeans to demonstrate.
According to the UN's programme on HIV/Aids, and based on available statistics, one in three of Burma's sex workers were infected with HIV in 2005.
However, the ministry of health's expenditure on HIV was estimated that year to be around $137,000, or less than half of $0.01 a head, the UN said.
Because of the junta's policies, the country also received a fraction of the international aid given to its neighbours.
"Overall, overseas development assistance per capita in 2004 for Myanmar [Burma] was US$2.4, compared with $22 in Vietnam, $35 in Cambodia, and $47 in Lao People's Democratic Republic."
Now the outlook for ordinary Burmese looks decidedly gloomier in the face of the military's crackdown. The US and EU have promised more sanctions against the junta and Japan has said it will cut humanitarian aid to the country.
New revenues
Several people spoken to in Rangoon said further sanctions would have little impact on the military elite, who have lived comfortably for decades and now have new sources of revenues from contracts with countries such as China, France, India, and Thailand to extract natural resources.
Ms Patchareeboon said that tougher sanctions "will have a direct impact on children who are already vulnerable, increasing their risk significantly".
The Burmese regime has, at least, joined the Coordinated Mekong Ministerial Initiative Against Trafficking, she said, and the Burmese media have reported on the arrests of traffickers and the stiff jail sentences they receive.
So what is shielding the trade in young girls that takes place behind the flimsy facade of "modelling" shows in Rangoon from the military regime's wrath?
The answer is as simple as it is obvious, Ms Patchareeboon said: money.
"I am sure that [the military] has officials making profit from the growing sex industry and trafficking of Burmese citizens abroad," she said. "Corruption and the institutionalisation of the sex industry is common."