Bangkok, Jun (EFE) .- Thailand’s sex workers and other nightlife professionals protested Tuesday outside the government headquarters in Bangkok against compensation for bar and club closings since April due to a surge in Covid-19.
In brightly colored dresses and heels, at least 20 people from nightlife, including massage parlors, strip clubs, and sex work-related karaokes, hung bikinis – their “work clothes” – on the fence of government offices.
“We pay taxes like the others, why don’t we get any help?” said one of the demonstrators’ posters.
The participants, all women and trans people, said they had been discriminated against compared to other workers who received help and asked for monthly assistance of 5,000 baht (about US $ 155) until the restrictions were lifted.
The entertainers also left around 30 pairs of heels of slips of paper on the floor of the protest grounds condemning mistreatment and neglect, despite their significant contribution to the economy, estimated in some studies to be as high as 10 percent of national GDP.
The Nonprofit Empower Foundation, which campaigns for the rights of sex workers, told EFE that around 300,000 women in Thailand have been involved in sex trafficking and that around 1,500 of them have made requests for assistance since April.
The foundation said that many sex workers prefer to remain anonymous and not seek help as prostitution is illegal in the country.
Under Thai law, prostitution can be punished with up to 40,000 baht (US $ 1,200) in fines and imprisonment for up to two years. EFE
ck-igx / ia
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