Sex for cash

Selling sex does not pay

When 21-year-old Suthin returned home after interviewing for a job at a prestigious bank, his village celebrated. The native of Thailand's poor northeast had already inspired pride by graduating from a university, and now he had been approved by the bank's managers for a career-track position. All that stood between Suthin and success was a blood screen. But when the test showed that Suthin - whose name has been changed to protect his privacy - carries the virus for AIDS, he lost the job.

An HIV plague is spreading across Thailand like a forest fire, sparking fear into the eyes of employers, workers and the government. Though the country's first local official case of AIDS appeared only in 1984, three years after the disease struck the United States, roughly 1 percent of all Thais are now HIV-infected, twice the U.S. rate, according to estimates by the local Population Development Association. More than 7 percent of Army conscripts from the north tested positive last year. And every day, more than 1,000 additional Thais are infected. Researchers at the Harvard AIDS Institute expect that by the year 2000, the number of Thais afflicted with HIV will balloon to 2 million to 4 million out of a current population of 58 million, largely through heterosexual intercourse. "Already more people are condemned to die from AIDS Thailand than were killed by the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan at the end of World War II," warns Mechai Viravaidya, a prominent crusader against AIDS.

The epidemic could eventually throttle the country's supercharged economy, which has exported its way to annual growth rates averaging 7.5 percent over the last decade. Since explosive economic growth has already created a shortage of technically skilled Thais, losses from AIDS will add still greater costs in worker training. And the medical bill for treating the afflicted could rise from around $1 million today to $20 million to $65 million a year at the turn of the century.

Tourism troubles. No sector of the Thai economy has more to fear than the $5 billion tourism industry. Though Taiwanese men still arrive by the busload at the Mona Lisa massage parlor, one of several huge sex businesses along Bangkok's Petchaburi Road, sex tourism is believed to be shrinking as foreigners begin to fear for their health. And with good reason. a nurse testing women in a Bangkok "tea house" reported that 80 percent tested positive for HIV - despite the fact that most had been certified the fact that most had been certified free of the disease. "It has scared away tourists," admits Bill Black, general manager of Bangkok's Regent Hotel.

Neither the business community nor the Thai government is going to accept the epidemic without a fight. AIDS education has been placed on the school curriculum and all radio and television channels carry AIDS prevention commercials. Warning that "dead customers are bad customers," Mechai Viravaidya has brought the business world into the campaign. Avon sales teams hand out advice on AIDS with the cosmetics they sell. Automated teller machines at Bangkok banks flash warning messages before dispensing cash. And gasoline stations distribute condoms to combat the virus. American International Assurance has become one of the most active companies in the anti-AIDS campaign, distributing information to all policyholders. The company has more than a moral stake in the issue. To cover health benefits for Thai customers stricken with AIDS, AIA Vice President Suthee Rajitrangson estimates the company will have to spend tens of millions of dollars.

Despite the financial burden, AIA agrees with Thai AIDS experts that the screening of new hires by companies is a wasteful exercise. "What you spend on that you could spend more productively on education," Black argues. Heedless of such logic, more and more companies are vainly trying to insulate themselves from the problem by excluding entry-level workers like Suthin. Says Black, "One thing people are going to have to realize is that they have every chance of losing a managing director as well as a factory-floor worker."