BANGKOK — Lek, petite with enough time black locks and you can a bashful smile, is actually a keen ‘Ooang Nua’ — a Thai phrase meaning ‘little girl about North’ — whose work with an effective brothel try serving their particular family relations back home.
Lek, 15, is one of countless ‘Ooang Nua’ employed annually of the brand new farming communities regarding impoverished northern Thailand so you’re able to stock this new brothels out-of Bangkok.
Recommended for their white complexions, more youthful girls for example Lek, regarding the province regarding Chiang Mai, often find on their own residing unique ‘teahouses’ one to focus on older Chinese dudes exactly who trust consorting that have young girls will repair its individual youthfulness and you can energies.
‘The town people came to all of our town and everyone was so thrilled,’ Lek said. ‘The guy exposed to all of our community headman while the the next thing I know I happened to be into an environment-trained bus bound having Bangkok.’
‘My parents obtained 3,000 baht ($130) personally. That is enough to feed them and you will my five siblings for a long period.’
She said she and two other village girls who grabbed the latest coach to help you Bangkok did not understand what was in shop to have them regarding the big city.
‘Of way mom and dad know I would personally end up being involved in a good teahouse into the Bangkok,’ she said. ‘But just what more you can expect to they are doing? That they had no money whatsoever getting restaurants.’
Whenever she arrived in the town, Lek along with her ‘sisters’ in the town received mats so you’re able to sleep in an area having a dozen other girls starting when you look at the ages of fifteen to help you twenty-two. Products and you may periodic scientific checks also was in fact given, she said.
Even with more half a year in the brothel, she’s not ventured beyond your strengthening, found in the heart of Bangkok’s teeming Chinatown area.
‘We aren’t permitted to wade exterior,’ she said. ‘One out of my personal sisters tried to run away one-time however, it stuck their own and you can defeat their unique. We never ever experimented with.’
Lek’s work day begins during the noon and you can stops from the ten p.meters., 7 days per week. The majority of their particular date is spent standing on a counter from inside the good dingy prepared room discovering comic courses and talking to the most other girls.
Customers enter the teahouse due to a network of back roadways, into the an unbarred-air Chinese eatery or over one or two flights out of rickety stairs. It browse the fresh type of girls toward table, every one of just who wears a numbered badge.
The purchase price try 60 baht ($2.60) for example time in the a small cubicle armed with a bed mattress and a pot away from Chinese teas simmering for the a hotplate.
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Lek remains a village girl in the attitude, having a powerful feeling of friends commitment and an uniquely Buddhist feeling of resignation
‘Usually We bed which have five otherwise half a dozen men each day,’ Lek told you. ‘Most are Chinese as well as the others try Thai.’
Lek said the guy of Bangkok repaid the new categories of each of one’s girls a lump sum payment, according to the attractiveness of the brand new girl and also the negotiating skills of your own town headman
Lek’s everyday ‘contract’ on broker who recruited her try of indefinite stage. However, including the most other girls, she’s aware their unique worthy of towards the teahouse reduces while the she grows old.
Their mind is concerned about brand new Thai New-year escape out of Songkhran, well-known in April, whenever she said she’s going to be allowed to see their own village regarding north.
‘I have not got a boyfriend,’ she said. ‘I don’t believe regarding it. Now the I would like is to come across my loved ones at Songkhran. I do not like to check out the coming.’