Negotiating Sex Work: Unintended Consequences of Policy and Activism

7. Raids, Rescues, and Resistance: Women’s Rights and Thailand’s Response to Human Trafficking

· 145 ·· CHAPTER 7 · Raids, Rescues, and Resistance Women’s Rights and Thailand’s Response to Human Trafficking Edith Kinney Raids, Rescues, and Rights Streams of men came and went throughout the night. Former police investigators and legal professionals from the International Justice Mission (IJM), a faith-based American nongovernmental organization (NGO), surveilled the brothel, looking for evidence of sex trafficking.1 IJM hired a local man to go undercover, posing as a customer to gain access to the brothel’s interior.2 He counted the condoms in the trash, mapped the facility, and made recordings of women working in the brothel without their knowledge or consent. IJM reported their findings to a local antitrafficking task force, including evidence suggesting that some women in the brothel were trafficked migrants and others were minors. The task force was a “multidisciplinary” effort that included social workers, legal advocates , activists from a local antitrafficking NGO, and police, who agreed to raid the brothel with IJM’s help. Late one night, the raid team approached the brothel. A zealous American operative kicked down the door “John Wayne–style.”3 Agents swarmed the property with sirens blaring and guns drawn. Police rounded up all the women they encountered, handcuffing “rescued victims” and allowing journalists to photograph the women without protecting their identities. Unable to communicate with many of the terrified Burmese and Shan women, the panicked rescue team called local NGOs for translation assistance. Officials attempted to separate minors from adults. They also distinguished Thai women from undocumented Burmese and ethnic minorities. By doing so, the rescuers hoped to identify which women 146 EDITH KINNEY were “willing victims” (voluntary sex workers) and which were “unwilling victims” of trafficking who might be persuaded to cooperate with investigators.4 The “rescued” women thought they were being arrested for prostitution and immigration offenses. Social welfare officials detained the women against their will in a locked shelter facility “for their own protection .” Some women escaped by stringing sheets out the window, running away from their rescuers. The detained women were “subjected to continual interrogation and coercion” by investigators who warned that “refusing to be witnesses against their traffickers would further delay their release” (EMPOWER 2003). But many “rescued” women had voluntarily migrated to Thailand intending to work in the sex trade. Although some women had been exploited during their journeys, they did not self-identify as trafficking victims and had little incentive to assist investigators. Many women were reluctant to cooperate with police based on prior experiences of corruption, harassment, or rape. Others refused to provide information for fear of being exposed as sex workers. Some migrant women worried they would be charged as traffickers because they had helped others migrate to Thailand to work in the sex industry. Ultimately, the undocumented adult women were deported. The underage girls languished in government rehabilitation shelters for over a year until they were finally repatriated. Both groups returned to the grim circumstances of poverty, violence, and oppression they had attempted to escape in the first place. Many intended to return to Thailand and resume sex work as soon as possible, albeit with increased debt, which put them at greater risk of exploitation and trafficking. With few “rescued” women willing to testify, the prosecutor could not build a strong case against the alleged trafficker. The raid did not deter the brothel owner, who soon had his business running again with more migrant women.5 And so it continued: one woman is “rescued” and another takes her place. The ineffective brothel raid that was described exemplifies the problematic relationship between crime-control and rights-based approaches to human trafficking and exploitation in the sex industry. Like many other fronts in the global “war on trafficking,” the rescue paradigm that has animated antitrafficking campaigns in Thailand reflects a tension between competing interests: law enforcement, which is focused on policing crime and borders, and human rights advocates, who emphasize the need to protect individuals from exploitation and discrimination. But even RAIDS, RESCUES, AND RESISTANCE 147 well-intentioned antitrafficking interventions have wrought significant “collateral damage”—much of it borne by the very groups most vulnerable to trafficking and exploitation (GAATW 2007). Over the past three decades, Thailand’s sex industry has been targeted in domestic government crackdowns and advocacy campaigns by antiprostitution , sex workers’ rights, public health, and international faithbased organizations attempting to address trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation. The Thai women’s movement in...