In the back alleys of Sukhumvit, foreign men flock to the Nana Entertainment Plaza – a 3 storey mall-type complex of strip joints, sex shows, and prostitution. Blazing in neon and managed by friendly smiling Thais, on the surface it appears to be light hearted, fun, playful. In reality, it is a web of trafficking, abuse, under-age girls, and fetishes. It is into this environment that a team of women from NightLight venture twice a week, and last night I joined them in their outreach.
NightLight began 5 years ago with a mission to “build relationships and provide hope, intervention, rescue and assistance to women and children exploited in the sex industry by offering alternative employment, vocational opportunities, life-skills training and physical, emotional and spiritual development to women seeking freedom.” Currently there are approximately 90 women who have left the sex trade and are employed by NightLight, which is a registered fair-trade jewellry making business.
Apart from the day to day work at NightLight, outreach nights are an opportunity for female volunteers to make contact with women working within the bars, to be a friendly presence, strike up conversations with customers to inform them of the issues they might be unaware of, and ultimately to offer an alternative life to women trapped in prostitution. Outreaches begin with prayer and a meal for all the volunteers. They have a strategy of which bars they will visit depending on the relationships they have with the bar owners and women.
Having walked through the red light districts of Amsterdam and London, I was prepared for anything. From walking through the Bangkok red light during the day everything seemed to be a little more hidden, but of course when the sun goes down, the party gets started. The area was packed with tourists even when we started out at 8.30pm. The Nana Enterntainment Complex caters to every desire imaginable; some bars are strictly staffed by lady-boys, some have tacky theme costumes, some are more hard-core than others, but all value their customers. The bars are usually managed by a foreign man but the women are looked after by older Thai women (or ‘mamasans’ as they’re referred to). The system is pretty similiar in each bar – customers are seated in booths that surround the stage in the middle, half the women employed are on stage at one time and dance for the length of about 4 songs, customers are allowed to watch as long as they’re buying drinks (the cheapest being a soda at $4), all women are numbered and customers can ask the mamasan to bring a certain girl over to sit with them for a while; if a man wants to leave the bar with one of the women, they pay a fee of Bht600 (a little less than $20); because prostitution is technically illegal in Thailand, this transaction is seen as paying for the women to have ‘a night off’ from their dancing; some bars have private rooms that the customers can use, but most enjoy taking the women out for the evening and will usually buy them breakfast before they return to work. NightLight understands that since the sex trade has become a booming tourist attraction here in Bangkok, bringing in so much money that the police simply turn a ‘blind eye’ to the illegal activity going on. And there’s plenty of it.
I accompanied Emily to a bar and we took our seats in the booth and ordered drinks. The woman waitress was dressed modestly and sat down with us after she served us and we bought her a drink. Emily had met her before and chatted with her in Thai and she seemed really happy to be spending time with us and have a break from work. It was a very strange environment to be in to say the least, and very hard to know exactly where to look. I didn’t want the girls to think that I was in there to watch them, and I didn’t want to make eye contact with the men in there either in case they got the wrong impression.
Looking at the girls’ faces on the stage, we noticed one that looked particularly young. We asked her ‘mamasan’ to invite her to join us for a drink. The waitress who was with us told us that she was brand new and only 14 years old, but when the girl herself sat down, she told us she was 26! It was quite obvious that she wasn’t. Emily spoke a little to her in Thai but she was extremely nervous and not very talkative. It was like she had split herself into 2 people - her real self and her character at this club. It was clear that she enjoyed dancing to the music, just like any 14 year old girl does, but it was dancing that was beyond her age. When she was on stage, it was as if she was trying to prentend that she was at home, dancing in front of her bedroom mirror, seemingly unaware of all the eyes that were on her; she also enjoyed the sisterhood of the other girls (there is a thick comaraderie between the women at these bars). But when she was sat in between Emily and I, she seemed so tiny and child-like with her long black hair and her hands folded in her lap, picking at her nail polish; her body was so immature, so young and she kept her eyes donward and cynical. It felt like I was hanging out with my cousin who is similar in age and I just couldn’t imagine her having to live in such an extreme dichotomy of innocence and perversion as this girl was forced to.
She was quickly becoming the most popular girl in the bar with the customers. Not long after she joined us, the mamasan came back to get her as another customer wanted her to sit with him. He was a white man in his late 50′s and had her sit on his lap. You could tell that she was extremely uncomfortable, but he was totally oblivious to her reluctance. He tried to get her to leave the bar with him, but for some reason the mamasan said that she was unavailable. Man after man asked for this young girl and some got visibly angry at the mamasan when she did not allow them to take her out for the night. It was quite a disturbing scene to watch unfold and I had so many questions – why were they employing a 14 year old in the first place? and yet why did they let her just dance when every other girl had to service customers? why did men old enough to be her grandfather want to sleep with her anyway? didn’t they feel any shame? how had she got herself into this? where were her mother and father? how did she feel? I am so thankful that NightLight exists to ask these questions and get to know the stories behind every prostitute, because there always is one.
We left before 10 when apparently the show gets more graphic. I left feeling pretty depressed and not really knowing what to do with the memory of it. There are obviously so many other layers to this issue, ones that I simply do not have the knowledge or energy to go into here. Suffice to say, it is an experience that I will not forget.
To find out more about NightLight, visit: www.nightlightinternational.com
Thanks Becca, it’s always interesting hearing/ reading how another person reflects on this and seeing it through fresh eyes. Thank you for coming and being part of this, even though it was difficult. I love you!
The conclusion to your post made me think of this, one of my favourite quotations by Arundhati Roy:
The only dream worth having … is to dream that you will live while you’re alive and die only when you’re dead . To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair.
To never simplify what is complicated or to complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget.