[Bangkok] City Hall to improve sex worker protection
City Hall to improve sex worker protection
PUBLISHED : 11 DEC 2022 AT 04:00
NEWSPAPER SECTION: NEWS
WRITER: PENCHAN CHAROENSUTHIPAN
https://www.bangkokpost.com/thai ... x-worker-protection
City Hall has pledged to work with sex workers and their support groups in driving a campaign to help end inequality and ensure better protection of their labour rights and welfare benefits.
Speaking at a recent launch of Giant Swing, a short documentary on the hardship endured by sex workers during the Covid-19 lockdown, deputy Bangkok governor Sanont Wangsangboon said inequality exists throughout society and the campaign to end it has a long way to go.
Mr Sanont said sex workers should enjoy the same rights and legal protection as other professions and City Hall is prepared to work with them in promoting their access to labour rights and social welfare benefits.
The showing of Giant Swing, prepared by the Service Workers in Group Foundation (Swing) and the Aids Healthcare Foundation, was part of a seminar on inequality and the future of sex workers in Bangkok last week.
It depicts the hardship of sex workers who lost their jobs when the government ordered the closure of nightlife venues in late March 2020 to curb the spread of Covid-19.
Some 200,000 sex workers were among the first groups of people to be hit by the closure and the last to resume work, the forum was told.
Surang Janyam, director of Swing, said it was the darkest time for sex workers and the foundation was too afraid to ask for public donations because sex workers are socially marginalised.
The foundation had Assoc Prof Chalidaporn Songsamphan, a political science lecturer at Thammasat University and the president of Swing, to thank.
After she shared the sex workers' plight on social media, donations poured in.
Ms Surang said the support signified how donors saw the group as "equal human beings" and encouraged sex workers to rise up to fight for their labour rights and legal protection.
She said the group enlisted support from human rights defender Somchai Homla-or, who agreed to help push the campaign so that sex workers are recognised by law and protected. | |
