BANGKOK — Lek, petite having much time black hair and you can a timid laugh, are an enthusiastic ‘Ooang Nua’ — an effective Thai expression meaning ‘little girl regarding the North’ — whose work with an excellent brothel is serving their own household members home.
Lek, fifteen, is one of hundreds of ‘Ooang Nua’ hired from year to year of this new agriculture towns out-of impoverished northern Thailand so you can stock linkki the brothels out-of Bangkok.
Best because of their white complexions, younger girls such as Lek, regarding province from Chiang Mai, usually see themselves located in unique ‘teahouses’ that cater to older Chinese dudes which trust consorting having younger girls commonly repair their very own teens and energies.
‘The urban area people involved our village and everyone was very happy,’ Lek said. ‘The man met with our very own community headman and also the next thing We knew I happened to be into an atmosphere-conditioned bus likely to have Bangkok.’
‘My parents received step 3,000 baht ($130) in my situation. Which is enough to provide them and you may my five friends and family for a long time.’
She said she and two almost every other town girls whom took the fresh new coach so you can Bangkok did not understand what was at shop having them in the big city.
‘Of path mom and dad knew I would personally getting employed in an effective teahouse from inside the Bangkok,’ she told you. ‘But just what otherwise you are going to they do? That they had no cash whatsoever to possess dinner.’
Whenever she found its way to the city, Lek and her ‘sisters’ about village got mats to sleep in a-room that have a dozen other girls ranging within the decades regarding fifteen so you can twenty two. Snacks and you can periodic scientific checks plus was indeed considering, she said.
Even with more than half a year from the brothel, she’s perhaps not ventured outside the building, found in the cardio away from Bangkok’s teeming Chinatown area.
‘We are not allowed to go additional,’ she said. ‘One of my sisters tried to hightail it single however, it stuck their own and you may overcome her. We never ever tried.’
Lek’s work-day initiate during the noon and you may ends up on the 10 p.yards., 7 days per week. Much of her big date are spent looking at a counter inside the good dingy waiting space training comic courses and talking to the most other girls.
Customers go into the teahouse as a consequence of a network away from right back streets, on the an open-sky Chinese eatery or more a few aircraft from rickety staircase. They browse the fresh distinctive line of girls towards the table, each of which wears a numbered badge.
The cost is sixty baht ($2.60) for 1 hours during the a tiny cubicle equipped with a bed mattress and you can a cooking pot out of Chinese beverage simmering to your good hotplate.
Lek stays a town girl during the frame of mind, that have an effective feeling of friends respect and an uniquely Buddhist feeling of resignation
‘Usually I bed which have four otherwise half dozen dudes each day,’ Lek said. ‘Most are Chinese and rest was Thai.’
Lek said the person out of Bangkok paid off brand new categories of for each and every of your girls a lump sum, according to appeal of the newest girl additionally the bargaining experience of your village headman
Lek’s casual ‘contract’ towards the representative which recruited their unique is away from indefinite period. However, for instance the most other girls, she actually is aware that their unique worth into the teahouse reduces just like the she increases elderly.
Their thoughts are focused on the Thai New year getaway off Songkhran, renowned from inside the April, when she told you she will be permitted to go to their unique village regarding north.
‘I have-not got an effective boyfriend,’ she said. ‘I do not think about this. Right now the Needs is always to pick my loved ones from the Songkhran. I do not wanna look at the coming.’