| |
Smegma
|
Comments from our OZ members? How is this situation down there?
========================================
The Nation, Jun 6, 2003
The tragic death of sex worker Puongtong Simpalee has spurred a major debate over the trafficking of women into Australia
Sex worker Puongtong Simpalee died a dreadful death in a Sydney detention centre - alone in a cell, enduring the sickening effects of heroin wrawal.
The 27-year-old was one of about six Thai women found by immigration officers at an inner-city brothel and taken to Villawood - Sydney s equivalent of Suan Phlu.
Unlike her friends, who were deported home the same month, the fragile and weak Puongtong, who weighed just 38kg when she was brought in, died four days later.
Her death in September 2001 passed without notice until an inquest was held in mid-March. Det Sgt Neal Apolony, the police officer who investigated her death, advised the court that Puongtong had told a former Australian boyfriend she was trafficked into the country shortly after being sold by her parents at the age of 12.
Suddenly, Puongtong was big news. Sold at 12: nightmare ends in death was the headline on the Sydney Morning Herald s court report the following day.
The coronial inquiry into her death put the spotlight on the trafficking of women for sex, sparking a flood of reports on Asian girls auctioned like slaves and sneaked into brothels Down Under by organised crime gangs.
Hundreds of Thai women work in the sex industry in Sydney, Melbourne and other major cities.
Most of them, police and immigration officials say, are willing participants drawn by the prospect of earning big money.
But authorities say a proportion are deceived and forced against their will into sex work. Others find themselves in appalling conditions, virtually held captive and made to service dozens of men a week.
Over the past three months there s been a stream of dramas with Thai sex workers escaping from brothels, freeing fellow
captives, plus exposes about the inadequate Keystone cops response from immigration officials.
Most controversial has been the Immigration Department s short-sighted policy of flying sex workers straight home, which critics say has prevented some women prepared to testify against sex industry figures and traffickers who organised their trips Down Under.
In late April, a Sydney coroner found that the treatment of Puongtong at the detention centre was inadequate and inappropriate, and that she was given the wrong drug for heroin wrawal.
And Australian police - stung by mounting criticism that they have failed to convict even one trafficker - started to treat the problem more seriously.
On May 7, a Thai sex worker who provided crucial information about the trafficking of women for prostitution was given a criminal justice visa - the first such visa issued in a federal investigation involving trafficking.
Around the same time Australasian Correctional Man-agement (ACM), the firm that runs the Villawood centre, was hit with medical negligence complaints from three top doctors over the death of Puongtong and another woman formerly detained there. One doctor told ABC TV that Puongtong would have survived if she had been taken to hospital.
Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock, meanwhile, was fending off calls in TV and radio debates for a national inquiry into the sex slave trade - estimated to be worth well over Bt1 billion (A$50m) a year.
Given all this, Ruddock, who is despised by opponents of Canberra s hard-line approach to refugees, must have been delighted by the latest news from northern Thailand - when Puong-tong s parents denied their daughter had been sold at the age of 12.
The minister had said all along that there was no evidence to verify Puongtong ever travelled to Sydney when she was that young.
And while the sting was taken out of the sex slave debate Down Under, up in Mae Ai, in Thailand s far north, there s only been more sadness and confusion.
Podjanee Simpalee, 47, and her husband Det, 49, expressed amazement when told about developments since the inquest into her daughter s death.
Asked about Puongtong s tale that she was sold at 12 and trafficked abroad, her mother looked miserable.
I don t understand why she said that. It makes me sad because we never sold her. It s not true. It s not real, she said.
Puongtong went to Australia willingly, she said, but not until she was at least 21 years old. Her daughter loved Australia and longed to bring them down to see the very happy life, she said.
They showed photos - some of them with dates on the bottom - of a young woman able to escape to play in the snowfields near Canberra, party on a boat in Sydney harbour, visit Bondi beach, and Melbourne.
Podjanee recalled regular phone calls, up to 30 minutes long, during the five or more years her daughter, whom she called Noi, lived in Australia.
She never mentioned something is not happy in her life to me. She never cried - only one time, when I told her that Ning [her younger brother] had died, she said.
For a couple who earn the most meagre living raising chickens and growing rice on a rented field, the controversy that has surrounded Puongtong s death was hard to fathom. Podjanee and Det have never even been to Bangkok. And life has been tough. Both their children are dead.
Puongtong s brother Ning died of Aids in 1998. His wife died the following year, leaving Podjanee and Det to look after their only grandchild, Nui - a plump, shy girl now five.
Podjanee said over the phone when first contacted two weeks ago, that they survived on just Bt40,000 in a good year. And half that in a bad year. Their home was spartan.
Podjanee said that after Puongtong had finished grade eight, or her second year of junior high school, her daughter left home with a girlfriend just 13 years old to travel 1,200km south to the capital to find work.
She went to Bangkok with a friend from the same village, who was one year older. They just found work for themselves in a restaurant. They took the bus from in front of the house.
Puongtong lived in Bangkok for three or four years before returning home with a Thai husband. Her parents lost contact with her for four years.
Then, when she was 21, Puongtong phoned from Kuala Lumpur.
Her daughter had found work in a bar - which is a common way of conceding Puongtong had entered the sex trade.
There were regular phone-calls, but her parents never saw her again. Two years later, Puongtong phoned, saying she was in Sydney.
I asked her what she was doing - she wouldn t say anything, but said she was happy. She planned to fly back to Thailand, buy land and build a new house - everything we want so we can have a better a life.
Podjanee wanted her to come home, but Puongtong put it off, saying not right now.
One of Puongtong s Thai girlfriends in Sydney broke the bad news about her death, she said.
Four months later, after Puongtong s ashes arrived from Australia, they held a Buddhist tamboon ceremony for her spirit in a nearby village.
Later, they sprinkled Puong-tong s ashes on the Kok river, not far from their home.
|
Thai Girls : Meet Sexy Thai Girls
Posted on: 8:11 am on June 7, 2003
|
|
ducksnutz
|
The key here is..
'Most of them, police and immigration officials say, are willing participants drawn by the prospect of earning big money. '
There is so much crap stirred up on a regular basis by the press over this kind of stuff and then it just gets on the roller coaster. It's a sad story, but no more sad than the many that die on the streets from drugs as well. After all that was what seemed to have killed her in the end. The 'slave trade' is way over done and with the above comment, most know what they are there for.
What is really sad is the do gooder 'johns' who try to play the 'white knight' and then the shit hits the fan and the girls are deported.
|
Bangkok Women : Meet Sensual Bangkok Women
Posted on: 8:30 am on June 7, 2003
|
|
|
|
Vancouver Jay
|
Nothing sells papers like dope and whores.
Blame the white man.
|
Bangkok Girls : Meet Sexy Bangkok Girls
Posted on: 11:35 am on June 7, 2003
|
|
tropical
|
ÝA very sad story indeed, but a story which no one ,least of all the gutter trawling journalist will ever know the facts of this poor ladies life.
Ý This was an opportunistic chance to grab headlines and sell papers due to the womans nationality, mystery,and value added " 12 year old sex slave inferred status".
This newspaper doesnt make any reference to the hundreds/thousands plight of Australias own street kid prostitutes that sell themselves to feed their own habbits to eventually die of heroin overdoses , as this Ýwould be distasteful and not conducive to selling their product.
Ý ÝUnfortunately the Australian print jounalists succumb to the Headlines at all costs (esp the truth) as most others in this industry.
|
Thai Women : Meet Matured Thai Women
Posted on: 8:10 am on June 8, 2003
|
|
dirty guru
|
the last post (not that my creditability is up) is true..in oz i pass on sex workers...they are deplorable, though often through no fault of their own...they are addicts or low lifes..sadly in a vicious cycle...or on the upper scale tto expensive impersonal..and totally unlike the thai experience...and the goverment prints selective stories that can be later rebuked to serve its purposes... want a visa>?
|
Bangkok Women : Meet Beautiful Thai Girls
Posted on: 10:09 am on June 8, 2003
|
|
dirty guru
|
as for debate...na.....not in mainstream...maybe jock talkback....see last posts goverment reasons..... these guys bullshit about babies being tossed into the sea by boat people (read desperate refugees) just to win the red-neck vote (one week later) oz is a great country but your a f_cken wizard if if get back by clicking just your heals with a thai...this aint kansas
|
Bangkok Girls : Meet Attractive Thai Girls
Posted on: 10:16 am on June 8, 2003
|
|
ducksnutz
|
DG,
is it to much VB or to much Bundy that is the overwhelming common factor in your posts??
|
Thai Girls : Meet Active Thai Girls
Posted on: 11:34 pm on June 8, 2003
|
|
tropical
|
DG
Maybe you should post when your sober, as you have proven what can happen to your state of thought when your shitfaced mate.
I thought I liked a drink but I think you may be constantly in your delusional state.lol
|
Thai Women : Meet Matured Thai Women
Posted on: 12:32 am on June 9, 2003
|
|
S05
|
to much grog d.g.,you need to dry out mate.
S05..
|
Bangkok Girls : Meet Attractive Thai Girls
Posted on: 1:34 am on June 9, 2003
|
|
| |
|
