BANGKOK — Lek, tiny which have long black tresses and a timid smile, is a keen ‘Ooang Nua’ — a good Thai expression definition ‘little girl about North’ — whose are employed in a brothel is actually feeding her household members home.
Lek, fifteen, is one of countless ‘Ooang Nua’ hired each year regarding the new farming towns out-of impoverished north Thailand in order to stock the fresh new brothels out-of Bangkok.
Preferred because of their white complexions, young girls such as for example Lek, from the state from Chiang Mai, often find on their own residing in special ‘teahouses’ one to serve more mature Chinese men whom believe consorting which have more youthful girls usually restore its own young people and you can powers.
‘The area man involved our very own community and everybody try very thrilled,’ Lek told you. ‘The guy exposed to the village headman and the the next thing I knew I was towards an atmosphere-trained coach bound getting Bangkok.’
‘My father and mother acquired step three,000 baht ($130) for me personally. That’s adequate to offer all of them and you may my personal five siblings for quite some time.’
She said she as well as 2 most other town girls which took brand new bus so you can Bangkok don’t know what was at shop for all of them throughout the big city.
‘Of direction parents understood I would getting in a good teahouse inside the Bangkok,’ she said. ‘But exactly what otherwise you’ll they are doing? They had no cash whatsoever to have dinner.’
When she arrived in the city, Lek along with her ‘sisters’ from the town got mats so you’re able to sleep on in a space that have 12 almost every other girls starting during the age regarding fifteen in order to 22. Items and you can occasional medical monitors as well as was in fact provided, she said.
Despite more than 6 months on brothel, she has not ventured outside of the building, located in the heart from Bangkok’s teeming Chinatown section.
‘We commonly permitted to go exterior,’ she said. ‘One regarding my sisters tried to run away single however, they caught their own and you can beat their particular. I never attempted.’
Lek’s workday initiate at the noon and you will concludes throughout the 10 p.m., seven days per week. Most of her go out was spent standing on a workbench inside the a good dingy waiting area studying comic books and conversing with brand new Sjekk ut her almost every other girls.
Customers go into the teahouse thanks to a network out-of straight back roadways, with the an unbarred-air Chinese eatery and up a couple aircraft off rickety stairways. It browse new collection of girls into the bench, each one of exactly who wears a numbered badge.
The price are 60 baht ($2.60) for starters hour from inside the a small cubicle armed with a bed mattress and you may a cooking pot out-of Chinese teas simmering to your a great hotplate.
Lek stays a village girl for the frame of mind, having a powerful feeling of household members support and an uniquely Buddhist feeling of resignation
‘Usually I bed with five or six dudes every single day,’ Lek said. ‘Most try Chinese and people try Thai.’
Lek told you the man out of Bangkok paid down the groups of for each of the girls a lump sum payment, according to appeal of the brand new girl together with bargaining experience of village headman
Lek’s casual ‘contract’ with the agent who employed her is of long cycle. But including the other girls, the woman is aware their really worth into the teahouse decreases as she expands earlier.
Their own thoughts are worried about the newest Thai New year escape out of Songkhran, celebrated when you look at the April, when she said she’ll be allowed to head to their own town throughout the northern.
‘I have-not had an excellent boyfriend,’ she said. ‘I don’t believe regarding it. Today all the I want would be to pick my family at Songkhran. I do not wanna think about the upcoming.’