At a roadside wood and corrugated iron shack bathed in green fluorescent lighting, Praew points to the bamboo furniture. The sultry night air carries the scent of tropical vegetation, sun-baked earth and the faint smell of something being fried with garlic. As food and beer begins to flow from inside, Praew starts to talk about being a Lao sex worker in Det Udom, a sleepy rural town in Ubon Ratchathani province.
Four years after a nationwide spate of raids and sting operations, it is business as usual in the brothels and karaoke bars along the Thai-Lao border. Lao women from poor families continue to find ways to enter the sex trade in Thailand, despite the risk of arrest and deportation.
Some Lao sex workers prefer to work in rural karaoke bars rather than in larger city brothels because of the perceived lower risk of strict law enforcement. Just a hop across the border. Friends had told her she could make good money across the border, much more than local jobs in the nearby Lao city of Pakse pay.
According to the International Labour Organization , Thailand is the foremost destination for Lao migrant workers. The average monthly wage in Thailand is more than double the average wage of , kip 3, baht, USD in Laos. Praew and her coworkers at the karaoke bar are not salaried, but receive about 5 to 15 baht commission for each soft drink they sell.
If I feel like going home to visit my parents for a few days, or to attend a celebration back home in Laos, I just tell the owner in advance and off I go. The World Bank estimates that in , Laos received a total of over four billion baht USD million in remittances from Lao migrant workers in Thailand. Across the Northeast, Lao women find employment in brothels and karaoke bars concentrated in the borders areas. But hard data on the numbers of Lao sex workers in Thailand is hard to come by.
