By Caleb Quinley
2nd September 2019

“Decriminalisation would mean that sex workers would stop being casted as criminals, would stop living underground, hidden to exercise their job.

Because according to the sex workers who choose to carve out a living this way, this heightened wave of legal suppression comes at a high cost. For those who have entered the sex trade voluntarily, the work is simply an honest way to get by. But lately, many sex workers say the police oppression is making the job even more difficult to navigate. For many of Thailand’s sex workers, the solution is simple – decriminalise the work.

“[Sex work] is the job that gave me the most opportunities to support my family and also the freedom to study for my own school qualifications too,” she told Southeast Asia Globe. “At the moment with the bad economy, other workers also understand our need to work and provide for our families. They may not approve of sex work, but they don’t want to punish us as criminals either.”

Kevin Bales, professor of contemporary slavery at the UK’s University of Nottingham, has been studying this area for more than 20 years. After interviewing countless women in working-class brothels across Southeast Asia, he has a radically different perspective. Bales told Southeast Asia Globe that after researching both legal and illegal settings of sex work, he found that the trade is consistently damaging to women and children across the spectrum.

full https://southeastasiaglobe.com/the-case ... sex-trade/