CHAT-ROOM PROSTITUTION: 'University Students for Sale' over Internet
A simple Internet chat service has become a popular tool for sex work in Thailand, a survey has found.
The survey by students from Chulalongkorn University's Faculty of Education has found that many male and female freelance prostitutes have been offering their services through chat rooms on Internet Relay Chat [IRC] servers.
IRC is a simple form of real-time text communications via the Internet that requires logging on to a server, which is connected to an IRC server network.
Although most Internet users now prefer instant messaging services, such as ICQ, many prostitutes still preferred IRC chat rooms, the survey found.
The students said they had observed the prostitutes' e-commerce and had interviewed many of them.
They found most of prostitutes were males serving both same-sex and female clients.
Many of the sex workers did not come from poor families but middle-class or well-to-do families.
They engaged in prostitution because they regarded it as an easy source of income.
Since most IRC servers are located overseas, the government cannot control or ban them, and are considered as an underground network by people "in the know".
The students said prostitutes and their customers used a special interface programme called Pirch to connect to the IRC network.
Pirch allows its users to communicate in Thai, and prostitutes - or "entrepreneurs'' as the students referred to them - to set up chat rooms with names in Thai to attract would-be customers.
Chat-room names include "High School Girls for Sale", "Sex Room of University Girls", "Room for Prostitution", "Room of Lonely Office Girls", "Sex for Sale", "University Students for Sale", "Hi-so Girls for Sale", "Room for Student Sex", "Bangkok Gays Room", "Chiang Mai Gay Room", "Gay Net Meeting" and "Hi-school Gay Room".
The students said prostitutes like to use the chat rooms because it's cheap, with a computer and Internet-access cost of Bt20-30 an hour all that's needed.
The survey found business was most brisk on weekends and after office hours on Fridays and Saturdays.
The peak time for Internet meetings was 6-8pm, when an average of 150 people visited a chat room.
Prostitutes use attractive language to introduce themselves in the chat room.
Prospective customers often ask for the prostitute's phone number and to see of picture of him or her.
Many prostitutes already have their photos scanned ready to be spent.
The students interviewed a 19-year-old male prostitute who said he came from a well-to-do provincial family to study in Bangkok, and entered the industry because he considered it fun and he had nothing to lose.
Another prostitute is an engineer with a degree working in a cement firm, while another is a 16-year-old student from a boy's school who said he had earned Bt200,000 in the two years in the trade.
The boy said his elder brother introduced him to Internet prostitution. His brother and his brother's girlfriend, who attends a girl's school, were also in the trade.
Source: WinBeta.Org
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