It has been 10 days since arriving in Phuket to work with
SHE ministries. I have gone and walked up and down the street of Bangla Road
(located i
n Patong) many times, however I am still shocked by the images and
signs that I see during each visit. I pray that the shock never goes away- that
I never become numb to the immorality that is taking place here.
Bangla Road encompasses about 200 open-air bars including 7 bar allies that
branch out from it. In front of each of these alley bars stands a pole on a small stage- a pole
that a girl lifelessly dances on starting at 10:30 each night. Walking past
these girls, loneliness and despair is evident inside of them, masked by layers
of makeup and mascara.
There are about 6-7 (sometimes more) girls who “work” for
each 
bar, meaning there are about 1400 girls that linger on this street- trying
to earn a living by selling their bodies, just waiting for their next customer
to take them home, night after night. This road also consists of Go Go’s, which
are strip clubs that offer dances, strip teases, and live sex shows. The girls
that work in these are usually sold to the owner, similar to a brothel, and
have much less freedom than the girls that work in the open-air bars. Walking
down Bangla Road we are constantly b
ombarded with advertisements for these Go
Go shows- men and women holding flyers up in front of your face, walking in
step by your side, persistently asking you to go in. Innocent looking children come up and tug
on your shirt asking you to buy their flowers, when in reality there is an
adult standing someplace nearby collecting the money they make. Ladyboys,
wearing barely anything, provocatively dance on a platform, night after night,
causing crowds to gather round them. (A ladyboy is a man who takes on the
complete persona of a woman. Many times you cannot even tell that they are a
man.)
Men, women, families, and couples, of all ages, walk up and
down this street, many times watching the dances. The number of families with
small children that walk these streets and stop to watch the shows is
staggering. It is not uncommon to walk down Bangla Road and see a girl
standing in front of a bar holding a sign that says something along the lines
of “Many gorgeous girls and a few ugly girls too!” This sign indicates that if
the ugly girls are bought and never return again, it is okay. Anything can
happen to them and it’s okay because they are viewed as worthless. Imagine how
a girl with this “status” must feel- living night after night, believing the lie
that her life has no value– that she is worth nothing.
Key Cities in Thailand:
–Bangla Road in Patong: sex tourism capital of the world
–Pittaya:
pedophile and child sex trafficking capital of the world
–Ensan: city in NE Thailand faced with
extreme poverty where the majority of prostitutes come from to find work and
support their families back home
Statistics in Thailand:
– 10% of the profit from prostitution comes from Western
society
– 90% of the profit comes from men here in Thailand.
-Prostitution is embedded into
their culture- 80% of Thai men go to a prostitute on a regular basis
– These “regular basis” prostitutes
of Thai men are known as “little wives” or “minor wives”.
-1/3 of Thai men and 40% of
housewives will become infected with HIV/AIDS
– 60% of all men that land in the
Bangkok airport are here for sex tourism.
-86% of male prostitutes are
heterosexual men being forced into prostitution by their family.
Definition: moving of persons from one place to the next through force, fraud,
and/or coercion for the purpose of servitude, debt payment, and forced sexual
acts under coercions
-800,000
people are trafficked annually across foreign borders
-80%
of trafficked people are female- 50% are children
-200,000
new slaves are introduced into the US annually
-1 million children are FORCED to
sell their bodies annually in the global sex trade
-27
million men, women, and children are enslaved in our world today
-32 billion dollars are annually
generated from the human trafficking industry- this is the 3rd most profitable
business in the world!
-Human trafficking comprises the
fastest growing criminal industry in the world, based on the recruitment,
harboring, and transportation of people solely for the purpose of exploitation.
Please continue to pray for the teams working here and for
Bangla Raod. Pray for restoration in the lives of the men and women here and
pray that we would continue to be light that shines through the darkness each
night.
