Thailand & Laos: Survey Shows Grim Reality of Lao Sex Trade

Prostitutes wait for clients at a Thai-Malaysia border town

BANGKOK -- Lao women seeking to escape poverty and poor education are increasingly ending up as sex workers in Laos and neighboring Thailand, mainly to support their families and themselves, experts say.

Though many consider it “bad work,” they believe prostitution amounts to the best economic opportunity they have, according to a survey of sex workers conducted last year in the country’s capital, Vientiane.

Many are children when they start, trafficked or tricked into the sex trade.

“Every one of them said they don’t want to do it,” Thatsaphone Sombandith, a Lao researcher who conducted the survey, said in an interview. “They say it’s necessary because of poverty, because they have nothing to live on.”

With an estimated per capita income of U.S.$460 in 2005, Laos is one of the poorest countries in East Asia. Classified by the United Nations as a Least Developed Country in 2004, 71 percent of its population live on less than U.S.$2 a day, and 23 percent on less than U.S.$1 a day...

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT Radio Free Asia (rfa.org)