When Namtan left her home in the Lao capital of Vientiane last year to go work at a restaurant in the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone, her hopes were high.
The 17-year-old was promised wages of US$75 per month – just below the national minimum wage, but not bad for a young, unskilled worker in impoverished Laos, where the average income is around US$2,150 a year.
“I decided to go to the Golden Triangle SEZ … because I was promised a good wage and I wanted to make money to help my parents,” said Namtan who, like the other women interviewed for this report, didn’t give her last name, citing fear of reprisal.
In September, six months after her arrival, Namtan’s plans began to unravel. The restaurant where she was employed turned into a karaoke “entertainment venue,” or KTV bar, and she was forced to provide sex to clientele or risk being beaten by the owner.
She was later “recruited” to work at a similar establishment in Mongla, a seedy town in northern Myanmar’s Shan state on the border with China.
“I was traded several times – the latest time I was sold from the Golden Triangle SEZ to Mongla,” Namtan said of her relocation four months ago to the border town, which is under the control of an ethnic Wa army at odds with Myanmar’s military regime. “Now, [my boss] is demanding that my mother pay a ransom for my release.”
She said her boss, who she believes is a Chinese national, demanded a sum of 30,000 yuan (US$4,200) for her freedom – far beyond anything she or her family can afford.
Namtan is one of three young women from Vientiane that RFA spoke with in recent days who were first recruited to work in the Golden Triangle SEZ in Bokeo before being sold and forced to work as prostitutes at the same KTV bar in Mongla.
All three faced beatings and other forms of punishment if they did not do the owner’s bidding, and were told they must pay a huge ransom for their freedom.
The women said that there are altogether 30 people held at the KTV bar in Mongla, which is located in an establishment called Kings Roman Casino – the same name as the casino that houses the KTV bar in the Golden Triangle SEZ in Bokeo, Laos. Other women held at the Mongla bar are nationals from Myanmar, China and Vietnam, they said.
Their stories are increasingly common as more youths with few job prospects fall victim to trafficking gangs in the enclaves of Southeast Asia’s Golden Triangle, where the borders of Laos, Thailand and Myanmar meet to form a remote and largely ungovernable region.
Impoverished young people from Laos and neighboring countries have told RFA they were lured to the area with the promise of a lucrative job but were then held against their will in casinos and karaoke venues by trafficking rings that exploit them under threat of violence.
‘Skinny, pale and tired’
The Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone, or SEZ, was established in 2007 in the northern province of Bokeo on a 3,000-hectare (7,400-acre) concession along the Mekong River where Laos, Myanmar and Thailand meet.
It’s become a gambling and tourism hub catering to Chinese citizens where investors – exempt from most national-level economic regulations – have built hotels, restaurants, casinos, a hospital, markets and factories.
But it has also earned a reputation as a haven for criminal activities, including prostitution and drug trafficking.
Nok, 19, said she agreed to work at a bar in the Golden Triangle SEZ when she was approached by a Lao middleman who said she would earn a good salary and “be treated well.”
“After working for two months, I went out for an hour, and when I returned, I was beaten with a wooden stick on my legs and arms,” she said, adding that she suffered “bruises all over my body.”
Her captor also reduced her paycheck by 200 yuan (US$28) and kept her confined at the club.
At that point, I was thinking about fleeing, as soon as I got paid,” she said. “Instead, I was sent to Thailand then Myanmar where I was beaten up again.”
Nok said she was sent to Thailand’s Chonburi province, but traded after a few months to the establishment where Namtan works in Mongla for 25,000 yuan (US$3,500) and forced to “provide sex services to Chinese tourists.”
Last week, she said her boss “threatened to kill me for my organs” unless she came up with 30,000 yuan (US$4,200) for her release by Jan. 19.
“My parents say they don’t have that much money to pay the ransom,” she said.
Nok said that in the three months since she was sent to Mongla, she went from weighing 50 kilograms (125 pounds) to 45 kilograms (112.5 pounds) “because I was allowed to eat only once a day.”
“I’m so skinny, pale and tired,” she said. “My parents are very worried about me and are trying to sell their home and land to rescue me.”
‘Why don’t they let us go back home?’
Around six months ago, Dao, 20, also ended up at the same karaoke bar in Mongla, where she was forced to provide sex to clientele.
While she has paid off her 10,000-yuan (US$1,400) “debt” to the owner, he told her she can’t return to her home in Vientiane because her “labor contract” doesn't expire until April.
“At first, they told me that there would be no beatings, and that I … would be free to come and go as I pleased,” she said. “But in reality, it's the opposite. We’re beaten up badly, confined in a room and deprived of food.”
Fa, a 21-year-old Myanmar national who can speak Lao and Thai, also works at the KTV bar in Mongla.
She said that when she started work at the bar, the owner promised that she would not be made to prostitute herself, but was told to 10 days later. When she and her Lao counterparts refused, the owner put them in handcuffs for two days.
Fa said that she suffers from a uterine condition that makes her unfit for sex work.
“Right at the beginning, I told my boss that I wouldn’t sell my body because my uterus is infected,” she said. “They said to me, ‘That’s OK, you can do whatever you want, and won’t be forced to do anything’ … They said if I have a 5,000-yuan (US$700) debt, I’ll have to pay exactly that and nothing more.”
Her boss said that she could stop working, but would have to pay him 22,000 yuan (US$3,100) for her freedom – money she doesn't have.
In the seven months since she arrived, Fa said that her health has worsened and that she went from weighing 52 kilograms (115 pounds) to 45 kilograms (100 pounds).
“My friends and I have been confined, detained, beaten up and deprived of food for days,” she said. “Why don’t they just let us go back home? Why?”
No help from authorities
The young women at the KTV bar told RFA they have been calling on Lao and Myanmar authorities and the media to help free them, but with no result.
Parents of the women from Laos said that they had also filed a request for help rescuing them with Lao authorities, but are not hopeful because they were told there was nothing they could do as “that area in Myanmar is a special economic zone controlled by the Chinese.”
RFA Lao contacted the Lao Embassy in Myanmar and officials from the Lao anti-human trafficking unit in Vientiane to ask Myanmar authorities for help rescuing the women in Mongla, noting that they risk being sold to other bar owners in the area if they are unable to pay their ransoms.
Lao Embassy officials said that they need assistance from their counterparts in Myanmar, but added that authorities have limited access to the area due to ongoing conflict.
“It’s controlled by the ethnic army,” one official said. “We’ve notified the Myanmar foreign affairs ministry asking for help … Lao police don’t have any connections with the Wa [ethnic army], but Thai police do.”
The official noted that there are currently 20-30 Lao victims of human trafficking being held in Shan state.
“Most of them were unaware of the dangers of human trafficking and ended up detained in Mongla,” he said.
Translated by RFA Lao. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.