Access is by appointment only, but a museum run by a charity championing the rights of women employed in the Thai sex trade is backing decriminalisation and upholding the values of International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers

In a museum on the outskirts of Bangkok, Thailand’s famed sex industry is proudly celebrated. Stripper poles, condoms and sex toys are among the items on display, while another exhibit lauds the trade’s contribution to the economy.

Entrance is strictly by appointment only, says 68-year-old Chantawipa Apisuk, founder of the charity Empower, which runs the museum. The organisation supports women working in the sex industry and – unlike many others in the field – does not pressure them to leave it.

“The museum is not open to the public. People in Thailand still have their perceptions,” says Apisuk, during a tour. Instead, private visits to the This is Us museum can be booked in advance.

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Presenting the sex trade without judgment and as equal to all others is highly contentious, especially for those who believe sex work is always an exploitative and desperate way to earn a living.

Apisuk, an irreverent fellow of Harvard Law School who wears round tortoiseshell glasses, believes otherwise. She is pushing to decriminalise the trade so that sex workers can have equal rights. “It’s normal work,” she says. “Sex workers are not victims.”

Text on the wall describes how the Thai sex trade was boosted during the Vietnam war, when roughly 700,000 American soldiers spent their allotted rest and recuperation weeks in the brothels of Thailand.

“Once again sex workers adapted to the new customers, learning about exchange rates, rock’n’roll, [the] meaning of army ranks, slang and providing services to young American men, some traumatised by the war, in a rush to enjoy their week before going back to the war,” the sign reads.

“Up until its end in 1975, the Vietnam war and by extension the sex workers of Thailand were responsible for injecting some $16m-$20m [£10.6-£13.3m] into the Thai economy annually,” it continues.

The first exhibit in the museum has a painting on the wall of a 400-year-old Chinese trade ship in Thailand. Wooden buckets of rice sit in front of it, the payment used for sex by sailors.

“Sex work was legal back then,” Apisuk says. “Sex would cost 15 kilos of rice. That much rice costs roughly 1,050 baht [£20] today. So the price hasn’t changed.”

In August, Amnesty International approved a policy to endorse the “full decriminalisation of all aspects of consensual sex work”, shocking many women’s rights campaigners.

Before it was approved, the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW) warned: “Amnesty’s reputation in upholding human rights for every individual would be severely and irreparably tarnished if it adopts a policy that sides with buyers of sex, pimps and other exploiters rather than with the exploited.”



The CATW campaign was supported by many former workers in the sex trade and given a boost by a host of Hollywood stars, including the Oscar-winning actors Meryl Streep, Kate Winslet and Emma Thompson.

Amnesty argued that its research suggested decriminalisation was the best way to defend the rights of sex workers and will now use its weight to lobby governments to accept its point of view.

It said sex workers are forced to live outside the law, making them vulnerable to aggressive police tactics, and leaving them unable to protect their rights against those who exploit them as they are threatened with criminalisation.

Empower also believes criminalisation harms sex workers. “It will remove the stigma,” says Apisuk, of Amnesty’s policy change.

“[Sex workers] want to have rights. The right to be a citizen, to go to school, health schemes,” she said, adding that sex workers are excluded from labour laws. “If you want a credit card, you have to define your work. You can’t show a payslip.”

Empower, founded in 1985, holds annual international summits for sex workers and helps its members with access to healthcare, legal advice and education. In 2007, it released Bad Girls Dictionary to try to combat discrimination.

The dictionary defines “anti-prostitution” as “a group of women we have never met but who claim to represent our best interests even as they try to put us out of work”.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Chantawipa Apisuk, founder of Empower, sits at a museum exhibit recreating a 1970s Thai bar where American soldiers would go to drink and have sex. Photograph: Oliver Holmes for the Guardian

Under the phrase “Ended up in prostitution”, the dictionary says: “A man fell down a mountainside and ended up in a river; sex work isn’t an accident, it’s a job; we don’t end up in it, we apply to work in it.”

“Many people are forced to do their jobs,” Apisuk says. “Sex workers have to be trained. Sex workers need to know about marketing. It’s a skill.”

An estimated 250,000 people in Thailand work in the sex industry, accounting for about $6.4bn in annual revenue, according to Havocscope, a database of information on world black markets.

The 14 full-time staff at Empower work on HIV and Aids awareness campaigns and also help migrant women who travel to Thailand and work in the sex trade. Apisuk has little time for other charities focused on ending human trafficking, which she says punishes the female migrants seeking a better life.

At the door to the museum, sewing machines sit discarded, the rejected relics of multiple aid projects to teach textile skills to sex workers to get them to change their profession.

“No more sewing machines!” a sign reads.

While Empower does help those who decide they want to leave the industry, Apisuk says the assumption that sex work is degrading is misplaced. When people condemn sex work, they are saying “my sex is better than your sex”, she says.

“You are a sex worker, right?” she asks. “But unfortunately you don’t get paid.”