A Different World of Suzie Wong
This is a story written by me based on the book I read from the title ‘Sex Slaves: the trafficking of women in Asia’ by Louise Brown
I was living in a world entirely different from that of The World of Suzie Wong.
I was born to a poor family in Tachilek, a remote village in Burma. At the age twelve, my mother passed away. My father remarried. My stepmother ill treated me. I was left hungry without food most of the time . My other brothers were luckier; they were adopted by my uncles. Nobody wanted me as I was a girl and I was deemed to be not as productive as the boys in the field. In our society as well as in most others in Asian countries women were woefully discriminated against. I was a victim of such discrimination.
One day a woman came by to promise me a good job as a maid to a wealthy family in Malaysia. I was tricked and sold to a trafficking syndicate which brought me to Mae Sai, a charmless Siamese frontier town on the border between Thailand and Burma. There I was sold to a brothel owner. At that time I was too young to know that like anybody else I too had the right to say that ‘No person can sell me to any other person.’ Moreover, I was only a young illegal migrant with difficulty communicating in a foreign language and I had no access to legal assistance. I was totally helpless. I was coerced to be a sex worker even before I reached the age of puberty.
At first I refused to entertain clients. For that defiance I was beaten repeatedly and incarnated in a dark room without food and drink. I was raped several times by the brothel owner to strip me of self-esteem so as to prepare me for prostitution. After a period of seasoning I had to accept the fate of being a sex worker.
Life as a sex worker was boring. A large proportion of the day and night was spent sitting in a glass-walled room, like gold fish swimming in an aquarium, waiting around to be chosen by the clients. We were not allowed to go out. We were kept under surveillance by local tough guys and by closed-circuit television. We saw, apart from clients, practically the same people every day. The routine of the life was the same everyday. It was no difference from staying in a prison and we were treated as sex slaves, working twenty four hours a day, and seven days a week without holiday except the New Year Eve.
There were lots of problems being a sex worker. The worst were the police and the hoodlums who wanted money from us time and again which we could not refuse to give.
Although I had little knowledge of health risk, I was unable to demand my client to use condom; if I was too insistent the client would just go to another woman and I would loss the business. That could be a reason why most of the sex workers would some how or other afflicted with STDs [sexually transmitted diseases] or HIV.
I had no liberty to choose my clients. Any Tom, Dick and Harry, could climb over my body as long as he could afford to pay the fee, and I had to provide him with a professional service or else I would be beaten by the brothel owner. On the other hand, I was pressured by my boss to make the customers stay for as short a time as possible so that I had more time to service more customers. If I took more than fifteen minutes to service a customer, I would also be beaten by my boss for providing an ‘unprofessional’ service.
Like the other sex workers, I was given contraceptive pills by the brothel owner to ensure I did not become pregnant as women who had had children were not in great demand and were paid less because customers preferred childless women who had tighter vaginas. If by chance a woman got pregnant, abortion had to be carried out by a specific woman employed to massage the stomach vigorously to dislodge the foetus. Despite the pain and the emotional trauma that she had suffered due to abortion, she was forced back into work within a few days.
Our living condition was deplorable. Four or five of us were cramped in a small bedroom. Irregular eating, monotonous food and inadequate sleep were our common complaints that fell upon deaf ears.
Working life span for a sex worker was rather short. Those girls who were found to be infected with HIV would be expelled from captivity in a brothel without much delay so as to safeguard the good name of the brothel. By the time they were twenty-five most poor sex workers already looked worn out. When they reached the age of thirty most of them could not make a living from selling sex because they looked like old women. For those aging prostitutes to survive in the trade, they were prepared to accept clients who did not want to use condoms or who wanted oral and anal sex.
After a decade or so selling sex, I had cleared my debts with the brothel owner and accumulated some saving. I returned home to Burma. I upgraded my family house and purchased some showy consumers goods. With the remaining money I opened a brothel by utilizing the management skills I acquired in Thailand.
This was my world of Suzie Wong.
This is a story written by me based on the book I read from the title ‘Sex Slaves: the trafficking of women in Asia’ by Louise Brown
I was living in a world entirely different from that of The World of Suzie Wong.
I was born to a poor family in Tachilek, a remote village in Burma. At the age twelve, my mother passed away. My father remarried. My stepmother ill treated me. I was left hungry without food most of the time . My other brothers were luckier; they were adopted by my uncles. Nobody wanted me as I was a girl and I was deemed to be not as productive as the boys in the field. In our society as well as in most others in Asian countries women were woefully discriminated against. I was a victim of such discrimination.
One day a woman came by to promise me a good job as a maid to a wealthy family in Malaysia. I was tricked and sold to a trafficking syndicate which brought me to Mae Sai, a charmless Siamese frontier town on the border between Thailand and Burma. There I was sold to a brothel owner. At that time I was too young to know that like anybody else I too had the right to say that ‘No person can sell me to any other person.’ Moreover, I was only a young illegal migrant with difficulty communicating in a foreign language and I had no access to legal assistance. I was totally helpless. I was coerced to be a sex worker even before I reached the age of puberty.
At first I refused to entertain clients. For that defiance I was beaten repeatedly and incarnated in a dark room without food and drink. I was raped several times by the brothel owner to strip me of self-esteem so as to prepare me for prostitution. After a period of seasoning I had to accept the fate of being a sex worker.
Life as a sex worker was boring. A large proportion of the day and night was spent sitting in a glass-walled room, like gold fish swimming in an aquarium, waiting around to be chosen by the clients. We were not allowed to go out. We were kept under surveillance by local tough guys and by closed-circuit television. We saw, apart from clients, practically the same people every day. The routine of the life was the same everyday. It was no difference from staying in a prison and we were treated as sex slaves, working twenty four hours a day, and seven days a week without holiday except the New Year Eve.
There were lots of problems being a sex worker. The worst were the police and the hoodlums who wanted money from us time and again which we could not refuse to give.
Although I had little knowledge of health risk, I was unable to demand my client to use condom; if I was too insistent the client would just go to another woman and I would loss the business. That could be a reason why most of the sex workers would some how or other afflicted with STDs [sexually transmitted diseases] or HIV.
I had no liberty to choose my clients. Any Tom, Dick and Harry, could climb over my body as long as he could afford to pay the fee, and I had to provide him with a professional service or else I would be beaten by the brothel owner. On the other hand, I was pressured by my boss to make the customers stay for as short a time as possible so that I had more time to service more customers. If I took more than fifteen minutes to service a customer, I would also be beaten by my boss for providing an ‘unprofessional’ service.
Like the other sex workers, I was given contraceptive pills by the brothel owner to ensure I did not become pregnant as women who had had children were not in great demand and were paid less because customers preferred childless women who had tighter vaginas. If by chance a woman got pregnant, abortion had to be carried out by a specific woman employed to massage the stomach vigorously to dislodge the foetus. Despite the pain and the emotional trauma that she had suffered due to abortion, she was forced back into work within a few days.
Our living condition was deplorable. Four or five of us were cramped in a small bedroom. Irregular eating, monotonous food and inadequate sleep were our common complaints that fell upon deaf ears.
Working life span for a sex worker was rather short. Those girls who were found to be infected with HIV would be expelled from captivity in a brothel without much delay so as to safeguard the good name of the brothel. By the time they were twenty-five most poor sex workers already looked worn out. When they reached the age of thirty most of them could not make a living from selling sex because they looked like old women. For those aging prostitutes to survive in the trade, they were prepared to accept clients who did not want to use condoms or who wanted oral and anal sex.
After a decade or so selling sex, I had cleared my debts with the brothel owner and accumulated some saving. I returned home to Burma. I upgraded my family house and purchased some showy consumers goods. With the remaining money I opened a brothel by utilizing the management skills I acquired in Thailand.
This was my world of Suzie Wong.
3 comments:
That's really sad and ironic in a way. Considering that it's becoming a cycle. She just ended the cycle by escaping from the brothel herself but she started the cycle again by opening another one. The cycle will only go on and on unless someone do something about it. It's also sad to see how some people are still being mistreated in this modern era. But still, a very good story (as tragic as it is).
Jacqui Graham commented:
"Well this is so difficult to post a comment on. Sadly the trafficking of young girls and women is widespread throughout the globe, happening as much today, right at this moment as it did 10 years ago, 20 years ago...Children are sold into the "Sex" trade daily...a five minute google is all that is necessary for the cold facts and statistics..
However, when someone shines a light directly onto what is happening in such a personal way, it would seem that the tragedy and horror of what is actually happening transforms from being a "news" event watched from the outside to hit the soul hard and painfully.
It is with heavy heart that I admit that reading and seeing such evil vibrates every cell of my body with outrage...the evil and cruelty seems so overwhelming and so powerful but we all have to remember the individuals and masses of people who are working hard to eradicate this misery...It is the only way forward because Good will ultimately win..."
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