BANGKOK – Sex workers in Thailand have launched a petition calling for prostitution to be decriminalized and urging authorities to remove all penalties for selling and buying sex.
Empower Foundation, a Chiang Mai-based group that supports sex workers, said it hoped to collect 10,000 signatures and present the petition to parliament to help persuade lawmakers to consider changing the country’s prostitution law.
“The law punishes sex workers – 80 percent of whom are mothers and the main breadwinner for the whole family,” said Mai Junta, a representative from Empower.
Surang Janyam, director of a Thailand-based support organization for sex workers, said the prostitution law should be repealed to allow sex workers to be protected under labor laws.
“The sex industry generates massive income (for the country), but there is no mechanism to protect (sex workers),” Surang said. (Reuters)
