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    Modern Babylon?: Prostituting Children in Thailand
    Modern Babylon?: Prostituting Children in Thailand
    Modern Babylon?: Prostituting Children in Thailand
    Ebook320 pages9 hours

    Modern Babylon?: Prostituting Children in Thailand

    By Heather Montgomery

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    Child prostitution became one of the key concerns of the international community in the 1990s. World congresses were held, international and national laws were changed and concern over "cemmercially sexually exploited children" rose dramatically. Rarely, however, were the children who worked as prostitutes consulted of questioned in this process, and the voices of these children brought into focus. This book is the first to address the children directly, to examine their daily lives, their motivations and their perceptions of what they do. Based on 15 months of fieldwork in a Thai tourist community that survived through child prostitution, this book draws on anthropological theories on childhood and kinship to contextualize the experiences of this group of Thai child prostitutes and to contrast these with the stereotypes held of them by those outside their community.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBerghahn Books
    Release dateDec 1, 2001
    ISBN9781782384762
    Modern Babylon?: Prostituting Children in Thailand
    Author

    Heather Montgomery

    Heather Montgomery is a member of the Fertility and Reproduction Studies Group and a British Academy Post Doctoral Research Fellow at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Oxford. She has recently been appointed Lecturer in Child Studies at the Open University.

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      Book preview

      Modern Babylon? - Heather Montgomery

      INTRODUCTION

      A Personal View

      The prostitution of children is not an easy topic to research, to read or to write about. It is a supremely emotive issue, which stands as an affront to accepted notions of appropriate sexuality, to the nature of childhood, and to the responsibilities that adults have towards children. It is unsurprising that so many voices of protest have been raised against it in recent years and that it has become so important an issue for Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs). It is equally unsurprising that few academics, outside departments of social work or social policy, have shown much interest in it. In some respects, there is little that many people wish to say about it except that it is a deviation, a distortion of adult/child relationships and of accepted sexual norms. There is an understandable squeamishness about inquiring too deeply into the nature of such abuse or in looking too closely at the effects it has on the child or the abuser. It is too disturbing to do anything other than condemn it. Certainly, it is a subject that supposedly dispassionate academics have been reluctant to involve themselves in, not least because it means confronting issues of morality and ethics head-on, which inevitably leads to suggestions and recommendations, becoming ‘part of the solution’.

      It is not easy to divorce the academic study of child prostitution from its moral context. Issues such as this, or indeed, any form of child abuse, do not exist in a moral vacuum and anybody reading or researching these issues is bound to come to the project with deeply held beliefs about the nature of abuse and strong feelings about those who abuse children. The ‘neutrality’ or ‘detachment’ of the participant observer has long been called into question, but it is a problem which becomes particularly acute in research on topics such as this. While applied anthropology has tried to tie the academic discipline of anthropology to concrete problems in the outside world, it has rarely tackled issues as controversial, or as emotive, as child sexual abuse and child prostitution.¹ Instead the field of study has been left to NGOs, activists and others with an explicitly interventionist agenda which relies less on research and more on demands for action. As La Fontaine has written in Child Sexual Abuse, those who do study issues such as child abuse from an academic perspective, lay themselves open to charges of ‘academic voyeurism [which are] no substitute for more action on behalf of the victims’ (1990: 17). These NGOs and their activists have done impressive work in making child prostitution an international concern. Their tireless lobbying and campaigning has lead to greater awareness and to an acceptance that child prostitution, especially that involving Western clients and Asian or African children, is an international problem whose causes, and indeed solutions, cross national boundaries. Their concern for children and their moral stance are explicit and they have little time for academic hand-wringing over dispassionate or neutral research. For them research is valid only as a means to an end. It is a way of knowing more about the children involved in prostitution, so that more effective intervention is possible. In this book, I am often critical of these NGOs although I do admire their activism and their success. It is always easier to criticise their campaigns than to congratulate them on all their achievements, which are considerable.

      Child prostitution is quite clearly a moral issue, and whether it is examined by an anthropologist or by a social activist, the underlying moral framework of the researchers needs to be made explicit. NGOs are categorical in their stance: child prostitution is ‘a form of slavery’, ‘an evil’ or ‘the rape of childhood’ (ECPAT Newsletters 1991–1993). Despite the sensationalism of the rhetoric, it is hard to disagree with the morality behind this. There are few people who support child prostitution, or indeed sex between children under the age of consent with adults, who do not have ulterior motives. Various paedophile groups, often claiming the language of children’s rights, have argued that children have a right to express their sexuality in whatever way they wish and that if they wish to have sex with an adult, they should be allowed to. It is not worth discussing these arguments in too much depth here when they have been so convincingly demolished by Ennew (1986) and Finkelhor (1979b) who draw attention to the enormous power imbalance behind the adult/child relationship and the subsequent impossibility of informed consent being given by a child to have sex with an adult.

      My own decision to study child prostitution as an anthropologist is similarly related to a moral stance, which should also be stated explicitly. I have a long standing interest in children’s rights and a firm belief in children’s importance as social actors. I began to study child prostitution as a form of child labour and as an infringement of children’s rights, and I continue to view it as such. Like the NGOs and advocates in the anti-child-prostitution lobby, I also believe that child prostitution is unjustifiable and that men, whether foreign or indigenous, who commercially exploit children sexually are guilty of an enormous misuse of power and a serious transgression of moral laws. I believe that children’s rights to their bodily integrity are severely compromised when they work as prostitutes and that, ideally, it is work that no child should have to perform, whatever his or her circumstances.

      However, I do not believe that morality is a single, uncontested category which precludes all further discussions. There are other issues and circumstances, such as the economic situation and family background of a child, which inform morality. Economics is integral to morality and issues such as child prostitution must be understood in terms of both. Prostitution is a form of labour, albeit an extremely exploitative and dangerous one where children are concerned, and it is only by viewing it as such that it is possible to understand the children and the decisions they make. Divorced (as some activists would have it) from the labour market, it is positioned as a unique evil, unrelated to economic forces, and linked instead to degeneracy and wickedness. While this may be morally satisfying, it denies and obscures other ways of understanding. Comprehending why prostitution occurs, and explaining the economic and social reasons behind it, does not make the condemnation any less strong. Indeed, morality should be placed in such a context if it is not to degenerate into self-righteousness.

      It is in these issues that I am most interested. In writing this book, I have no wish to justify the abuse that children suffer in prostitution or to offer any apologies for men who perpetrate this abuse. However, I am interested in children’s rights and children’s participation in research, which means taking children seriously as both research subjects and as analysts of their own lives and circumstances. Those who defend sex between adults and children wilfully distort the language of rights and participation (for a critique of this literature, see Scheper-Hughes and Stein 1987). Giving children rights must include the right to protection from harm. It does not include burdening children with responsibilities which they are not ready to handle. A sexual relationship with an adult is predicated on a large power differential which exposes the child to harm and abuses the concept of rights.

      Child prostitutes are among the most powerless and least articulate in any society and there is an enormous temptation to speak for them and to interpret what they say, so that it fits in with outsiders’ preconceptions. Alternatively, there is a strong tendency not to listen to them at all. Their situation is so dire and they are in such obvious need of help that it becomes unnecessary to hear what they say. Their words can add little to the poignancy and desperation of their situation. However, even these children have their own views and their own interpretations of their lives and situations and these should not be ignored. An anthropologist or an activist cannot speak for them or be their interpreter; they have their own voices and their own analyses which are equally valid.

      It is much easier to hold these beliefs in the abstract than it is to have them confronted and challenged on a daily basis during fieldwork. Conducting this research and writing it up were gruelling processes whereby many of my assumptions about children’s rights and participation were shown to be problematic. It is simple to claim that children have a right to be heard and believed and much harder to put it into practice when children do not say what they are supposed to say. In common with other researchers and journalists, I went to Thailand with a clear picture of what I expected from a child prostitute. I expected a certain passivity and fatalism and an articulation of their disgust and possibly outrage at what they had to do. The abuse was obvious and the wickedness inherent in their abusers so apparent that I expected nothing more than to listen and to record stories of exploitation. While I believed that children should be allowed to speak in their own voices and should be able to express what they felt, I did not expect them to say anything more than this. I anticipated that some of the older children might be able to formulate some solutions to their plight but I still expected, and in many ways hoped for, an analysis of their situation which reflected and reinforced my own world-view.

      The children in the community within which I worked, however, painted an infinitely more complicated picture of their world which challenged any simplistic dichotomies of good and evil, abused and abusers. It proved disturbing and disconcerting that their analyses of their lives were far more nuanced and far more sophisticated than mine. Listening to what they had to say meant jettisoning many of my own beliefs and certainties about child prostitution but also acknowledging the strength of my own feelings about it. It is an emotionally charged issue which I could not view without prejudice. Despite a stated intention not to get involved – to be a dispassionate ‘participant observer’ in anthropological terminology – I found this impossible, and in many ways undesirable.

      The realities of child prostitution are difficult and to stay neutral in such circumstances rides dangerously close to complicity. It is important not to become too blasé about this abuse and not to forget the physical and emotional damage inflicted on a child. There is far too much prurience in discussions of child prostitution; too much furtive enjoyment in breaking the taboo of talking about sex with children. Nevertheless, it must be remembered that a child’s body is not made for penetrative sex with an adult and that when this occurs the physical damage is great. It is extremely shocking and very upsetting to see a boy return from a client bleeding after a sexual encounter and it is easy to sympathise with campaigners who do not wish to understand but only to condemn.

      The damaging effects of child abuse have only recently been recognised in Western societies and it is hard not to project some of this knowledge onto understandings of child prostitution in Thailand. There is evidence from the West that adult survivors of abuse have a variety of psychological and social problems. The damage inflicted lasts a life-time. Even though Western models of psychology may not be appropriate for Thailand, there is an irresistible tendency to see the future of these children as unremittingly bleak. Their tragedy concerns not only their miserable present but also their ruined future. That children should be condemned to this so that a small number of Western men can enjoy sex with them is terrible. It is something that no amount of research can ameliorate. Dealing with the children who are victims of this abuse on a daily basis is demanding, often draining, and their victimisation is difficult to deal with. Intellectual understanding apart, I found it incredibly painful to see the children suffer. While I understood the wider political-economic forces that allowed this abuse to occur, it was still hard to see children of whom I was fond being abused and to witness the physical damage that was inflicted on them. In those circumstances, I had no desire for impartiality or neutrality, and I felt the role of a detached researcher to be untenable.

      Despite this I recognised that conducting this sort of research meant maintaining some distance between the researcher and the informant. It is not enough to empathise with the children or to express horror on their behalf. Research can only be carried out if there is some separation between the researcher and her informants. I, of course, never had to cope with prostitution; the children did. One of the recurrent points of this book is that outrage is not enough and ultimately does little good if it is not accompanied by a more profound understanding. This understanding is only possible if emotions are disentangled from the research and the situation is understood, if not neutrally then objectively. It is impossible to study the situation of child prostitutes without prejudice. I have made little attempt to do so and my own views are clear. However objectivity is more feasible. By maintaining an intellectual, rather than an emotional, distance it is conceivable to see the wider contexts in which these children live and to go beyond simplistic responses. It is always difficult in this kind of research to draw boundaries. It is hard not to become emotionally involved with the children and harder still not to become angry and upset when confronted with the evidence of the abuse which they have suffered. Equally, however, it is difficult to conduct research when one is too intimately involved with the informants and attempting to intervene in their lives. It is impossible to study without changing or intervening, but nevertheless, research does need some distance and the ability to stand back. Often it was not until writing up my field-notes or talking to friends that I became aware of how normal the children’s lives seemed to me and how much I accepted the everyday forms of violence to which they were subjected. In order to function in that environment and to understand how the children viewed what they did, it was sometimes necessary to accept prostitution in the way the children did. As ever, there are grave difficulties in this. The boundary between the distance required to conduct research and a lack of empathy for the children is a fine one, but one which it is important not to cross. Further research on child prostitution is necessary. There is still far too little known about the children involved, but research should not be based solely on emotional responses to these children’s plight.

      Accusations of voyeurism, which are sometimes levelled at researchers who investigate sexual abuse, are easy to understand. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the issue of intervention. All research is a form of intervention and it is naive to assume that the presence of a Western researcher does not change people’s attitudes or behaviour. My very presence in the community I studied, and my own attitudes towards what I was studying, were apparent for I made little attempt to hide them. Many of those who work as prostitutes or whose children work as prostitutes are aware of the stigma against them and did not view my dislike or disapproval of their way of life as shocking or unusual. Although they frequently offered explanations as to why they worked as prostitutes, no-one enjoyed it or felt that it was a ‘good’ way of life. Given different circumstances or better opportunities, many would undoubtedly have left. However, as I argue in later chapters, they had developed survival strategies which enabled them to cope with their lives. These were justifications and ways of understanding that had been worked out over a long period of time and which enabled the community to function. To argue too persuasively against these ways of thinking would mean destroying the ways in which the community kept together and survived.

      There is always an unease about how far, and what form, any intervention should take. I specifically promised the community that I would not inform the authorities of the activities that took place in their slum. However it was extremely hard to see Western men visiting the slum to choose which child they wanted to have sex with, or to know that, in a few days time, a man would arrive from Europe and have a child already lined up for him in his apartment. It was at moments like these that I felt I ought to have told the police, in order to have these men arrested or at least warned off. The idea that there was a way of preventing this abuse occurring contrasted painfully with the promises I had given not to inform on members of the community. Similarly, the children constantly stressed the importance of their families to them and expressed great distress at the thought of being separated from them. In such a deprived environment, their love for their families, and duties towards them, were a way of gaining self-esteem and one of the few things of which they could be proud. Despite this, however, I sometimes felt that perhaps the children would be better off without their families. Whatever parents felt about their children, clearly they were inflicting great damage on them. There was no malice in this, there obviously was great love between parents and children but, nevertheless, the children did suffer through poor parenting and deprivation. There were certainly times when I felt that the community should have been broken up, and families separated, if the cycle of prostitution and poverty were ever to be broken.

      There are no easy answers to these dilemmas and I have never resolved them fully. I did keep my promise to the community not to alert the police or the welfare authorities but I also agonised about the abuse the children were suffering and my inability to do anything about it. There was also a sense in which there was nothing I could do. In a Western society, there are channels to go through; social workers, state welfare services, the police. In Thailand, the welfare infrastructure is shaky. If families were split up and children sent away, there were few places for them to go, other than prison. The parents, as their children’s pimps, would face jail sentences and the provision of care for children with various problems and needs was extremely limited. There were few homes for children with their social and physical difficulties, and care provided by the voluntary sector, while often very good, was patchy and under-funded. Foster care for children such as these would have been equally hard to find and it seemed counterproductive to call for intervention when the problems that these children faced had few practical solutions.

      Separating children from their parents and their community may have short-term benefits, but without the intensive and long-term psychological and social counselling and intervention that these children need, it would ultimately be pointless. Instead, it is likely that these children would become more institutionalised and more difficult to help and their problems would simply be shifted to another venue rather than alleviated. There is no criticism of Thailand implied in this. Few societies place much emphasis on children, and children with problems are inevitably low on any social services’ list of priorities. The scale of abuse that has been uncovered during investigations of children’s homes in North Wales² has highlighted this. Even within a relatively wealthy society which claims good legal protection of children and a care infrastructure which should protect the vulnerable, this abuse of children can occur and continue for decades. The children in these homes were ‘difficult’ cases who were pushed out of sight and mind into these institutions where untrained, badly paid and un-vetted ‘carers’ abused them. The scandal is not only the depravity of the perpetrators, it is also the scandal of a society which allowed this to happen and which failed to dedicate enough resources and effort into preventing it. In Thailand these problems are multiplied. It is a country which is considerably poorer than Britain, despite the period of economic growth it experienced in the 1970s and 1980s. During this period, little money was invested in welfare or in building social services structures. The current economic collapse of Thailand does not bode well for vulnerable children. It seems most unlikely that resources will be channelled into long-term help and protection for them.

      There will be readers of this book who will disagree strongly with this approach and who may feel that whatever promises I gave and however limited the alternatives, preventing abuse over-rides all other considerations and I should have reported these men to the police. They may feel that academic research should not be placed above the protection of children and that in attempting a long-term research project, I did indeed do this. I share some of these concerns. However, the ethical dilemmas involved in this research, like the research itself, are extremely complex, and there will always be differing views on the nature and purpose of research projects such as this. There are many moral questions that this research posed and I do not feel that I have, or indeed, ever can, resolve all of these entirely. I do believe, however, that children deserve to be understood and that any proposed intervention should be based on their interpretations and understandings. I further believe that the only way to assess these adequately is by intensive research where children’s views are respected and listened to.

      I am wary of interventions based on claims of the children’s best interests when the children themselves are not consulted or even known. While it is possible to imagine the difficulties that child prostitutes face, it is harder to know how they can be helped if there is no base line data or proper research on their situation. Too often child prostitutes are treated as a homogenous category facing identical problems and needing similar help. In this book, I will argue that this way of viewing child prostitutes is theoretically and practically wrong and often damaging for the children. There is a variety of ways in which children become prostitutes and this prostitution takes many forms. Intervention strategies must be tailored accordingly. There are no grand schemes in this book to end all child prostitution. While this may be the ultimate goal, there is a great deal of ground-level research that must be done first. This book is not concerned with the vague goal of raising awareness; the problem of child prostitution is already well enough known although it is still obscurely understood. Child prostitution is a complex problem which will require many forms of intervention. The individual circumstances of the children involved, as well as their own world-views, must be taken into consideration if the problem is to be tackled in any meaningful way.

      Academics have often shied away from commenting on emotive and controversial topics because such research frequently carries with it the assumption of recommendations for intervention. When researching children, this dilemma is acute. There are few ethical guidelines on research with children (Morrow and Richards 1996), but there is a basic understanding that research should not do any harm. There is a sense in which research on child prostitution does do harm if it is written only for academics with no attempt to make broader links to social workers or others who could offer practical help. I made no promises to the children I worked with that helping me with my research would provide them with any material advantage, but, nevertheless, I continue to feel a responsibility to them. Part of this responsibility involves admitting the ambiguities and incongruities inherent in their lives and representing them as honestly as possible.

      The core of this book, Chapters Three, Four and Five, deal with the children’s perceptions of who they are and what they do. I discuss what was important to the children, how they coped with what was happening to them, and what strategies they used for survival. I examine their understandings of prostitution, the stories

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