Newsgroups: bit.listserv.seasia-l
Date:         Thu, 30 Jul 1992 17:59:59 PDT
From:         "Indonesia Publications/Task Force" <apakabar@IGC.APC.ORG>
Subject:      BU/TH: Behind the HIV Prostitutes
X-To:         seasia-l@msu.edu

    Reuter, Bangkok, David Brunnstrom, July 30 - Swiss child rights
activists said on Thursday they had evidence that Burmese teen-aged girls
forced into prostitution in Thailand are brutally beaten and sometimes
killed by pimps if sick with the virus causing AIDS.
    The Geneva-based Association Francois-Xavier Bagnoud, which runs a
shelter for child prostitutes in Thailand, began an investigation into
brothels on the Thai-Burma border after receiving pleas for help from
young women forced into prostitution there.
    It hired Philip Nicolet, of the International Committee for the
Dignity of Children, who visited several prison-like brothels in the
Thai port of Ranong near the border in May.
    "The conditions I saw were absolutely atrocious, I could not believe
it was true. It was clear that many of the women had been beaten. They
looked like slaves. Many of them were as skinny as Ethiopian girls,"
Nicolet said in an interview.
    He said he arranged to take one young woman out of a brothel to a
hotel in the town and interviewed her for six hours using drawings and
sign language.
    "When she found out what I wanted she embraced me and immediately
burst into tears," he said.
    Nicolet said the girl told him she was beaten and underfed and that
women were taken away and shot by the pimps when they were sick or when
there was no further use for them.
    He said her story was backed up by reports from local Thai fishermen
who frequent the brothels and the letters the association had received
earlier from other women.
    "I am not able to say that I have definite evidence that women have
been killed, but the fact is that some girls have disappeared and the
treatment they receive seems to go as far as killing," he said.
    "I have reached the conclusion that this is probable."
    Nicolet said he was told the pimps were unable to send the women
back to Burma once they were unfit for work as they were illegal
immigrants whose records could not be traced.
    After the investigation, the Francois-Xavier Bagnoud Association
worked with the Thai authorities to arrange raids on several brothels in
Ranong in the past month which rescued 153 Burmese, mostly teenagers and
some as young as 12.
    Those from one of the brothels all tested positive for the human
immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS, Nicolet said, adding that the
infection rate overall ranged from 20-100 per cent.
    Doctors examined one woman aged 30 and found she was bruised from
head to foot from beatings. "Her skin looked like a zebra's," Nicolet
said.
    Most of the women said they wanted to return to Burma, he said.
    Association president Albina Du Boisrouvray told a Bangkok news
conference her organisation was negotiating with Burmese authorities to
set up centres in Burma to care for the women and warn others of the
dangers of prostitution in Thailand.
    "What we uncovered is a case of modern slavery, in some cases, child
slavery in extremely sordid conditions," she said.
    "We need the help of the Burmese authorites to allow us to return
these children safely to their families. We are ready to open a house in
Burma if needed for those who are HIV-infected and who have no family."
    Military-run Burma has in the past prosecuted such returnees for
illegally leaving the country and, after testing for AIDS, fined or
jailed them.
    "We hope to get the Burmese government to accept the idea that these
women are the victims and should not be prosecuted but looked after,"
Nicolet said.
    "It is too early to say if they will be convinced."
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