While child prostitution is increasing worldwide, experts say it is growing fastest in Asia, and the police there say the clients are of all kinds: locals and foreigners Asian, Arab and Western businessmen, diplomats and development workers. Not least, the fear of AIDS is leading clients to shun older prostitutes, in the mistaken belief that children are "clean." But pediatricians who have to stitch up their small patients say the anal and vaginal tissues of children tear easily in sex with adults, making them highly susceptible to infection. At the same time, countries like Thailand, eager to attract tourism, have become tolerant of brash sex clubs for homosexuals, heterosexuals, pedophiles and others in search of sex that is expensive or outright dangerous to pursue at home. It is not just poverty but also affluence born of a long economic boom that is driving the trend, creating a child sex industry on a scale never seen. His is one of the more conservative estimates. Ronald O'Grady, a Protestant minister from New Zealand who heads the Campaign to End Child Prostitution in Asian Tourism, puts the number of prostituted children under 16 worldwide at 400,000. The sex trade has long flourished in big cities throughout South and Southeast Asia but social workers say that, increasingly, children under 15, male and female, are being sold or recruited into prostitution. "The children feel so worthless, they believe they are dirty, that they are bad." "We have to talk things out very, very slowly," she says. Sister Michele says she is only just learning how troubled the children are, how much attention they need. Some girls so effectively block out the past that they forget their home address or even their parents' names.
She says they bury their feelings and hide their experiences even when they visit the doctor, sore with venereal diseases. In the four years she has worked with prostituted children, moments when the children let out their pain are very rare. Next to her, Sister Michele, a young Catholic nun from India, bends down to cradle the girl.įor Sister Michele, the session is astonishing. Drained by her anger, Lek throws herself on the floor. Then, after two years, she was sold again. She worked every day, there were many men, Thai men, foreign men. She cried a lot." The words pour out louder and faster. "This girl had a lot of pains," she yells. Lek grabs a stick and begins striking the air with every new point. "This girl was 10 and she was sold to a woman called Auntie. "This girl was sold by her mother," Lek shouts. She has never told her life story, but now she belts it out. She jumps up and pokes wildly at her image. It is hard to imagine that not long ago these children, aged 11 to 14, worked as prostitutes, used by men three and four times their age.Īs soon as Lek sees her photograph, the quiet 12-year-old girl is transformed. The pictures make the girls look like small, spindly birds, rather than sex objects. This day, a visitor is taking Polaroid pictures and passing them around.
But in a nearby shelter for former prostitutes the scene is demure, as girls settle down for group therapy. The Home of Body Building exudes a sour sweat from the hall where older men are eyeing prancing young boys. The massage parlor is already swallowing clients through its dark doorway cheap perfume hangs in the air. IT IS BARELY MIDDAY AND THE THEATER OF THE flesh is well under way in one of Thailand's notorious red-light districts.