One thing I really love about the government here, purely from a humor point of view, is how when asked about prostitution they government response is always one of "we don't have that in Thailand" and then everyone just laughs and laughs and laughs and laughs.
Prostitution is EVERYWHERE in Thailand and it is very easy to spot that. Often, some government official will admit there is "some" prostitution but then will shift blame to areas that are frequented by foreigners such as Pattaya, Bangkok, and Phuket as the prime offenders. But anyone that spends any time here knows that it is all over the country and is a huge industry.
The oldest occupation in the world!
This is the headline on a recent article on an English-Language news site in Thailand. These guys can be kind of funny because their articles will praise the police for their diligence, but if you understand English well enough, you can clearly see that the authors are making fun of the police, not praising them.
Or they might be pointing out the hypocrisy of their ways.
The police when on a late night raid of the streets of Pattaya to clean the place up but when they did their job the only suspected prostitutes that they managed to catch are all foreigners. That's crazy how that works huh? The suggestion being, on the part of the government, that once again, the pure and innocent Thai people are being corrupted by these immoral foreigners that are ruining the sanctity of Thai society.
You do not need to wander very far to find girly bars in Pattaya, where these "busts" too place.
There are several streets that whose only purpose is to have thousands of hookers on display and yet somehow the police are completely unaware of these establishments huh? It was a while ago but some idiot in charge of some level of police said they had conducted a survey of Pattaya and looking everywhere for prostitution and couldn't find any. I'd imagine that while he was talking to the press there was a guy in the background doing something similar to this towards him.
Of the people that were busted in this raid 10 Tanzanian nationals, five Kenyan nationals and one Vietnamese national were apprehended. Great police work guys.
I'll tell you what is really happening here: Thailand tourism is down because of actions on the part of the government. Now, the people who own the girly bars are not getting as much business as they normally would and the street walkers who work outside of the confines of a shop that takes a large portion of their wages are cutting in to what little remains of this lucrative pie. So the bosses of these clubs, many of who probably ARE police, eliminate the competition wandering the streets. Since foreigners are not going to be protected by a pimp, gangster, or someone else who is also police or connected to the police, they are the easiest targets.
It also accomplishes the very stupid and untrue objective of attempting to make it look like foreigners are the reason why this widespread prostitution exists in the first place. But you would have to be an absolute fool to believe this is true.
If Thailand actually wanted to clean up and remove this industry it would be very easy for them to do so. The bars that specialize in this sort of thing are very easy to spot and some of them are even labeled as being that sort of thing with "specials" on the girls' services that are being offered at the time.
They don't do this because there is a lot of money in this industry and both the police and government that controls them are the ones that are benefiting financially from this industry.
Personally, I don't have a problem with this industry existing and think if people want to take part in that, then this is their choice and you should take your morality and shove it up your ass. If nobody is getting hurt then do whatever you want.
But what I don't like is when the government (any government) just tries to lie to the public and pretend as if they are some sort of angels trying to help the general public when it's all just for show.
They look like fools in the meantime though, and everyone local and probably a majority of non-locals are very aware of this.