THAILAND: Women Refugees from Burma are Trapped in Prostitution

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Meena Menon

MUMBAI, Apr 14 1997 (IPS) - Harassed by Thai authorities and living in constant fear of the Burmese military, many women refugees from Burma on the Thai border have been forced into prostitution to provide for families, an Asian rights group says in a report released here recently.

The Asian Women Human Rights Council (AWHRC), which sent a three member team to investigate rights violations and document sex trafficking last February, released its preliminary findings in India’s financial capital, Mumbai (Bombay), ahead of next month’s summit of South Asian leaders in the Maldives.

AWHRC would like the Maldives meet to take note of the serious rights violations in Burma and in the refugee camps, and put pressure on the military junta in power in Rangoon to restore democracy in that country.

Pointing out that the majority of refugees are women from Burma’s ethnic minorities, the report says that “illegal migrant work and large-scale trafficking has flourished … (as the) Burmese refugees are impoverished, powerless and unprotected.”

“With their communities and families deprived of food, shelter, livelihood, peace and security, more and more Karen and Burmese women fall prey to the lucrative business of trafficking,” it adds.

The team’s visit to Karen refugee camps in the Mae Sot district, in northern Thailand, coincided with the biggest assault since 1995 by the Burmese army against the armed rebels of the Karen National Union (KNU).

An Indian member of the team Meena Seshu told the press that soldiers of the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), the Burmese military junta, were massed on the border which was very tense during their visit.

Seshu said the women, broke down, as they told the team that they lived in constant fear of fresh attacks by the Burmese military who raided the camps and took away refugees to use them as forced labour in military offensives.

According to a Karen Refugee Committee report, which AWRC cites, more than 35,000 minority Karen refugees in Thailand were affected in the first two months of 1997. Three refugee camps on the border were torched by the Burmese military which is seeking to crush resistance movements like the KNU, the largest of the ethnic insurgencies along Burma’s border. The Karens are the second largest minority in Burma, after the Shan tribals.

At least 100,000 Karens have fled Burma to refugee camps in Thailand, but even there they are not safe, said Seshu. Already about 1,000 refugees have been forced back to Burma, according to representatives of several humanitarian organisations.

Local people interviewed by AWHRC said they suspect the Thai government is turning a blind eye to the Burmese raids on the border as a natural gas pipeline has been proposed through where the camps are located. Some even suggested a possible collusion between Bangkok and Rangoon to get the Karens out.

AWHRC says that in view of the continuing “extreme human rights violations in Burma and in the refugee camps, pressure should be brought on the ruling junta to restore peace and dignity in the country.”

It is bitterly critical of the “constructive engagement policy” being pursued by both ASEAN and EU member nations on Burma, which the rights groups says “confers legitimacy on the SLORC regime”.

Since it took over power in September 1988, SLORC has been targetting Burma’s minority Karens and systematically suppressing human rights in the country. Violent ethnic conflict has forced an exodus of tens of thousands.

Burmese women and girls have been the worst affected. It is estimated that at least 40,000 girls, between the age of 10 and 16, have been taken to work in brothels in Thailand.

Though the team was not able to visit the brothels, the members interviewed many sex workers. They were told that at least five women have died of AIDS related complications in Mae Sot district alone since the beginning of the year.

It takes only 10 baht to cross the border and traffickers have easy passage. One women who spoke to the team said prostitution was the first thing she thought of, when she found that it was impossible to find employment under the SLORC regime.

“We found that many of those in the brothels along the border were as young as 13. The girls were kept in a room and the conditions were pathetic, much worse than the brothels in Bombay,” said the AWHRC’s Seshu.

“Since a new Thai law punishes minors in prostitution, the whole practice had gone underground and most of these young girls are beyond the reach of health workers or given protective measures,” she pointed out.

Because they have crossed the border illegally, their plight is worse. In many cases, they are tricked into prostitution — brought from Burma’s villages on the promise of jobs on Thai farms where they would be paid 40 bahts daily.

An Asiawatch report claims the rate of HIV infection among the Burmese prostitutes was approximately three times higher than among women prostitutes in general in Thailand. A major reason for this is their powerlessness to demand safe sex.

The AWHRC fact-finding mission was supported by the Foundation for Women (FFW) in Thailand. Apart from Seshu, who works with an Indian NGO Sangram, the two other members were Nelia Sancho, AWHRC-Manila co-ordinator and a researcher of FFW.