This article was written to give a bit more insight into the lives of the girls working in the Thai entertainment industry. It is not meant to be judgemental, nor is it meant to glorify bar girls. Just some facts and background information.
Please also be aware that most of this is generalization.
Background/Education
The vast majority of bar girls in the areas catering to farang are from Isaan, the poor Northeast of Thailand. Most of them will have grown up on a small rice farm in some village in the middle of nowhere, scraping together a living. The massage parlour girls usually come from similar backgrounds, only they are usually from the North of Thailand. Southern girls are quite rare in the Thai bar scene.
Most bar girls have had only a rudimentary education, sometimes only primary, before being sent out to work and help support the family. However, don’t mistake a lack of education for lack of intelligence. Some of these girls are very smart and learn quickly.
The figures according to a 1994 survey by the Venereal Disease Division, Dept of Disease Control, Ministry of Public Health. It is based on 5,754 service girls, the majority of them in the Thai aimed trade though. (Only 136 go-go bar girls and 563 massage parlor girls took part.)
Mean age: Isaan 24.8; Central/South 24.1; North 22.1
Mean years edu.: Isaan 5.9; C/S 5.7; N 5.5
Ever married: Isaan 95%; C/S 83%; N 45%
Have children: Isaan 75%; C/S 21%; N 22%
Living with husband: Isaan 10%; C/S 15%; N 14%
Reasons
For the majority of girls the reason to enter the trade is money, be it to support a kid or aging parents, pay off a family debt. Make no mistake, just about every girl in the business has a background: knocked up and then dumped, past marriage, raped or abused, etc.
The decision on which type of bar and which area is almost always determined only by where she knows family members, friends, people from the same village, etc.
Reason for working in sex industry (taken from the same survey):
Poor parent: Isaan 30%; C/S 29.2%; N 59.7%
Help siblings: Isaan 20%; C/S 16.7%; N 9.7%
Raise child: Isaan 30%; C/S 12.5%; N 6.5%
Get good income: Isaan 5%; C/S 16.7%; N 17.7%
Forced to start: Isaan 15%; C/S 10.3%; N 1.6%
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