SEX WORK AND THE LAW - HIV/AIDS Data Hub

fined and released. Migrant sex workers who are registered to work in other
occupations are charged with associating for the purpose of prostitution and working
contradictory to their registered occupation. They are fined and released or sent to
immigration to be charged with immigration offences, fined again and deported.
Migrant sex workers without any documents, especially those who appear to be
under 18 years are detained as victims of human trafficking. Owners and support staff
will be charged with human trafficking plus other offences. The raid will now be called
a ‘rescue’ even though nearly all workers deny being trafficked.
Thailand
Rescues
After being identified as victims at the police station, undocumented migrant
sex workers undergo a series of medical tests without informed consent. The tests
include dental exam and bone X-rays in an attempt to estimate their age. They are
then detained as either victims or witnesses depending on the results of the age tests.
Women are not permitted to leave the shelter to work, though men are. They are held
for periods of 3 months to 2 years before being deported. Compensation is available
but has never been claimed on behalf of migrant sex workers.
In the Suppression of Human Trafficking Act, prostitution is specifically named in the
definition of trafficking, as if it were, in itself a distinct type of trafficking rather than
being included with other forms of forced labour. ‘Exploitation’ of prostitution is used
without defining exploitation specifically. This leaves it open to subjective judgments
of what may constitute exploitation of prostitution. For the past ten years or more
there has been a conflation between migrant sex work and trafficking that has led
to arbitrary arrests, long detention, deportation and other violations of the rights of
hundreds of sex workers and their families.
Crackdowns
Occasionally police will raid entire areas at once known as a ‘crackdown’. This may be
done in response to criticism of police in the media or part of a political strategy.
Migrant sex workers
Migrant sex workers are highly vulnerable to human rights violations. Some foreign antitrafficking
NGOs target migrant sex workers for raid and rescue operations. NGOs and
police wrongly identify many migrants who are working in the sex trade voluntarily as
trafficking victims. 565 Sex workers who lack documentation are not eligible for free access
to Thai health care services. Unlike migrant domestic workers and other general labourers,
migrant sex workers remain undocumented and vulnerable to labour exploitation and
human rights abuses. 566 In 2006, it was estimated that undocumented migrant sex workers
typically pay police bribes totalling 6,000–14,400 baht per annum. 567
A World Bank report found that:
Undocumented women in the Thai sex industry have clear risks and vulnerabilities
for HIV infection, including illiteracy, vulnerability to trafficking, low levels of HIV
565 RATS-W Team, Empower (2012) Hit and Run: The impact of anti- trafficking policy and practice on Sex
Workers' Human Rights in Thailand, Empower Foundation; Empower (2004) Report by Empower Chiang Mai on
the human rights violations women are subjected to when “rescued” by anti-trafficking groups who employ methods
using deception, force and coercion. Chiang Mai: Empower.
566 Cameron L. (2006), ibid, p.49.
567 Cameron L. (2006), ibid, p.44.
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