Empower and the Can Do Bar

Today we left the Lisu village, after a small ceremony of thanking our host families and goodbyes. We took the vans back to Chiang Mai and most of us slept the whole way back. Once we were back at Payap University, we all rushed to the showers, since we had gone 4 days without them living in the hills. After doing some laundry, and repacking to leave back to Bangkok the next day, we all met up for a reflection on our time in the Lisu village. We overcame the language barrier and we able to learn so much about this culture in such a short time. It was such a different experience from the rest of the things we had done in Thailand, but a very exciting one!
In the evening, we headed back to the Can Do Bar (for the third time..) and we we able to speak with a few women who worked there, along with a few members from Empower. Empower is an organization which supports women in the sex trade, and works for equal rights, education, and safe, fair working conditions. It was founded in 1984 a bit by accident; it started as a group of sex workers, meeting together to learn english in the alley ways. The group continued to grow and Empower was started. There are now 8 centers around Thailand that have education and health programs, and help sex workers become enrolled in the Thai social security system. The education that is taught is focused on language, GED equivalency, and Thai history, along with safe sex. At the Can Do Bar, there was a computer lab, an exercise room, and multiple classrooms on the upper levels for the workers. There weren't any actual rooms where women can take clients, however.
There is a lot false and exaggerated information out about sex workers and the sex trade in Thailand, and the conditions of the sex workers isn't as bad as we thought/had read about in our readings. In 1996, the laws in Thailand were changed, and police stopped extorting the workers, and HIV had killed off the bad slave owners and half of the slaves, supposably ending the slavery system. The women that we talked to didn't see themselves as victims or slaves. This was the life style that they chose, and even though their options are more limited than ours may be, they they seemed content with themselves. Each worker usually is able to support 5-8 other adults and have specific goals in how to use the money that they earn- such as buying a house. We also learned that the age range of sex workers is usually anywhere between 18 and 66 years old, and about 80% of them are already mothers when they begin working.
Overall, it was a very informative session with these women, and it was definitely a new experience for us all.

-Heidi and Ken