Mail Order Bride Trade
The Coalition of Asian Sister's Against Sexual Exploitation (CASSE), draws our attention to the traffic of Asian women and its repercussions for Asian women living in the United States. «A factor in the creation of CASSE was the need we saw in responding to the flood of media coverage of the mail order bride trade, which has become a 'hot item' since the beginning of the year (1984). The fact that there were no organised protests around the existence of this commercialised marriage market or the perpetuation of degrading stereotypes of Asian women said more about the invisibility of Asian women's subjugation in the U.S. than the predictable responses of the mass media establishment,» said Toko Serita of CASSE.
The women in CASSE are now:
- organising educational workshops on the trafficking of Asian women;
- distributing a statement in response to the increasing attacks leveled against Asian women, particularly in regard to the coverage of mail order brides;
- researching into the possible strategies of actions in assisting Asian women who are being imported to the USA and subjected to sexual/economic exploitation;
- creating international networks to share strategies and information.
For more information, contact:
CASSE, do Third World Women's Archives, PO Box 2651, New York, NY 10009, USA.
Information from:
Third World Movement Against the Exploitation of Women, TW-MAE-W, PO Box SM-366, Manila, Philippines.
Behind the tragic deaths of Phuket
In January 1984, a fire broke out in the southern resort island of Phuket, in which at least nine people were killed and 15 others injured. Among the dead were five prostitutes, who had been locked in a brothel room.
The tragedy rekindled the age-old controversy about forced prostitution in Thailand. Brothels in which forced prostitution is practised exist in most provincial capitals.
After the tragic deaths of five prostitutes in the fire of Phuket, human rights workers interviewed the mother of a 17-year-old Chiengmai girl. Pot, who was killed in the fire. The mother learned about her daughter's death through another girl who escaped and returned home. She said Pot had been recruited only two months before she died by the brothel owner, also from Chiengmai, who claimed he could solve the villagers' financial difficulties by getting jobs for their daughters in town. He gave 6,000 baht (US$260) to parents for each girl recruited.
Very soon. Pot found she had been deceived. She wanted to write her parents but could not, because there was no writing material available. Through the cooperation of a client, she sent a message to her mother. The mother tearfully told human rights workers she could do nothing to help her daughter. The money she had been given was spent.
Information from:
Asia Link, Center for the Progress of Peoples, 48 Princess Margaret Road 1/F, Kowloon, Hong Kong.
The Asian Women's Liberation, no. 6,1984
This issue of Asian Women's Liberation presents a series of articles on sex tourism. Military Occupation and Prostitution Tourism by Tono Haruhi is a thorough and perceptive study on the rise and fall of prostitution industry in various Asian countries in relation to American's Asian military strategy. The Okinawa Base and Prostitution by Takazato Suzuyo appeared in AMPO, 1982, and describes how military prostitution persists and exploits women. There is a report based on interviews with fifteen Filipina entertainers working in and around Tokyo. Tsukamoto Yumi's Trafficking in Women: Sex Tours Come Home to Japan, reflects «how tens of thousands of Asian women have been lured to Japan under sham work contracts only to be subjected to the worst treatment that the sex slave trade offers.» All these articles were written by members of the Asian Women's Association and are available both in English and Japanese.
For more information, contact:
Asian Women's Liberation, Asian Women's Association, 211 Shibuya Co-op. 14-14 Sakuragaoka, Shibuya-ku 160, Tokyo,Japan.
Women's Link. February 1985.
Women's Link has published a report from the Church Women United in Korea on the ill effects of prostitution and sex tourism, especially Japanese sex tourism, the "Kisaeng Kwan Kwang", in Korea. It describes how prostitutes operate in Korea and the Korean government's tourism policy which to a certain extent encourages the industry to bloom.
For more information contact:
Women's Link, Women's Concern Desk, Christian Conference of Asia, 480, Lorong 2, Toa Payoh. Singapore 1231, Singapore.