Clarification By Phuket Police Of Thai Law

[JetsetBkk]

From this week's Phuket Gazette "Issues and Answers" section - no web link available yet.

By Kathu Police Superintendent Col Grissak Songmoonnak:

The illegality of prostitution refers primarily to forcing women to have sexual intercourse with clients; these cases usually involve brothels that imprison women in terrible conditions that foreigners do not frequent.

In Patong there are only three aspects of the law that tourists might like to be aware of:

1. If a woman is under 18, then the client would be guilty of paying a minor for sex, which is a serious offense.

2. Ladyboys are requested not to sell their services on the street.

This is a gentle suppression rather than an arrest, and is done to reduce the problem of tourists having their possessions stolen from someone who will be difficult to find.

Many bar-girls refuse many men, while accepting others as clients since it does also largely depend on whether they both like each other as humans.

Ladyboys, however, are often not so choosy and not so sincere in their relationships, which are based more on sex and money, and the police therefore try to ensure that if ladyboys must approach foreigners, that it is done in a suitable place so that the atmosphere is kept safe and fun.

3. A bar-fine simply entitles someone to take the girl out of the bar, be it to a disco and dance, have dinner or whatever. In this, no law is broken.

As long as everything is mutually agreeable then there is no problem.

If a tourist does agree to pay a girl for bedroom antics, then he must pay the agreed price or else he would be guilty of deception or cheating. This has nothing to do with the sexual aspect. If a client has agreed to pay a bar-girl to act as a tour guide, translator or whatever else, then he must keep his word and pay the agreed fee.

Many people ask me this question including ambassadors and diplomats.

Some, obviously, have difficultly discussing the subject, so it is great that the

Gazette

is finally printing something that will provide answers.

The bottom line is that if she is over 18, agreements are kept and she is not being forced to do anything against her own free will, then there is nothing to worry about when it comes to the law.

Source: http://www.phuketgazette.net/digitalgazett...6259&Cat=34 bottom of page 27

(See attached smaller file with extract of cited article only)

"...finally printing something that will provide answers." Couldn't agree more. Excellent information that every one should be made aware of.

20081013_Phuket_Gazette.pdf

[Maestro]

Nonsensical post and reply thereto deleted. Topic closed to prevent further nonsense posts. Just take the OP for what it is: a copy of something published in a local paper. I see that www.phuketgazette.net has a link one can use if a ThaiVisa member wants to ask immigration any question.

A moderator will add the link when it becomes available, which I understand will be in about two weeks (delayed access for non-subscribers)

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Maestro

[Maestro]

JetsetBkk supplied the link and I have added it to the original post in this thread. It opens a 52-page PDF document (8.7MB), which may take a while to open. I tried to delete all other pages to make it a smaller file to upload here but it is protected in such a way that this can’t be done, at least not with my Acrobat version 6.

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Maestro

P.S. phaethon shrank the PDF file to the bare essential for the cited article and I attach it below (537kB). Thank you, phaethon!

20081013_Phuket_Gazette.pdf

Edited October 13, 2008 by Maestro
Added postscript - Maestro