This article, another written by Nicholas Kristof (subscribe to his blog! http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/) back in 2004, found through purchasing the time of a prostitute that she was actually a slave. Through their time, she admitted that the life she was living was hell, and why wouldn’t she want to leave. In my experience in Pattaya and Bangkok, Thailand, there were moments when the girls said they loved working in their bar because that was where their friends were, but after talking for a while would admit that they wanted to leave. Because the cost of freedom for girls in some of these Southeast Asian countries is so low to us, we can forget that there is a COST to their freedom. If we want to leave a job, we leave. These women are slaves, even though we call them “prostitutes,” because nobody should have to pay an employer (in cases such as these, they are owners, not employers) to leave a job.
Kristof decided to buy these girls their freedom. Read the column below to find out what happens…
The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Girls for Sale
