A group of sex workers awaiting their male clients to buy their services. — Picture courtesy of Pertubuhan Kesihatan dan Kebajikan Umum Malaysia
Developing reliable and accurate figures on the number of sex workers in Malaysia still remains a challenging task for the country. To better understand the roots of the problem and the determining factor fueling the sex industry here,Apart from their introvert nature, what both sex workers had in common was poverty.Siomey was only 20 when her then-partner sold her to a brothel to do sex work due to their financial issues.
“It’s hard to find jobs now and even if I find one, it won’t pay me the amount I’m earning through sex work.Being a single mother, Siomey said it’s becoming more difficult to continue the sex work as her child grows older. On top of that, Ainn said she was raped and sexually harassed by her father and one of her half-brothers since childhood.Ainn claimed that she lodged a report against her father when she was 12 and stayed at a shelter home for a while.Ainn said her living environment was becoming very uneasy, and she couldn’t take it anymore.