Illegal to sleep with lao citizens

[Brisboy82]

I have read so many warnings saying it's illegal to sleep with any lao citizen whether they are male or female and that the charge is very real and serious. When I first explored the lao gay scene this made me a bit apprehensive.

However I have found the gay scene in Laos to be very friendly and interactive and I know one lao-farang gay couple in luang prabang who have lived together there openly as a couple for several years and own a bar and guesthouse there. They say they have never had any concerns or problems with any authorities.

So what is the deal with the supposed 'very serious' laws regarding this?

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[a447]

It's probably just a case of another communist country trying to keep up appearances. Like China denying the existence of prostitution.
Vietnam is the same. The hotels have a warning about foreigners trying to bring Vietnamese back to their hotels.
I didn't have a problem in Laos - the hotel just asked for ID. I wouldn't have tried it at a 5 star though.
Someone told me (sorry, Thongy, can't remember who!) that the guest houses are ok. I also heard (sorry, Thongy, don't remember who told me!) that the law only refers to heteros.
At the end of the day, they are humnan like us and have the same desires. Where there's a will there's a way, I guess.

I have read so many warnings saying it's illegal to sleep with any lao citizen whether they are male or female and that the charge is very real and serious. When I first explored the lao gay scene this made me a bit apprehensive.

However I have found the gay scene in Laos to be very friendly and interactive and I know one lao-farang gay couple in luang prabang who have lived together there openly as a couple for several years and own a bar and guesthouse there. They say they have never had any concerns or problems with any authorities.

So what is the deal with the supposed 'very serious' laws regarding this?

Hi,

The law basically says that it is ilegal for a Foreigner to sleep with a Lao citizen that is not their married partner.

I agree with the comment that it is basically ' keeping up appearances ' I think it would be viewed a bit more serious outside commercial areas such as Luang Prabang or Vientiane. I don't think they take this ' law ' seriously but it's there to be used if necessary.

The law basically says that it is ilegal for a Foreigner to sleep with a Lao citizen that is not their married partner.
I agree with the comment that it is basically ' keeping up appearances ' I think it would be viewed a bit more serious outside commercial areas such as Luang Prabang or Vientiane. I don't think they take this ' law ' seriously but it's there to be used if necessary.

I've never heard of a law such as this except for the Nazi Racial Laws, so what happens if you get a corrupt police official who decides he needs some extra beer money? If it is indeed written in the statute books then the door is wide open for bribes etc!

[Beachlover]

I'm curious... why might it be ok in a guesthouse but an issue in higher-end hotels?

Has anyone stayed in a nice hotel, invited guests back and had issues or not had issues?

[yaraboy]

Only potentially a problem for male /female relationships and the only time I've heard it being an issue is with
an unmarried couple living together. Just a way for Village Chief to get a little pocket money

Gents,

It's really no problem at all. It's one of those areas where they like to be seen to be not falling into the old standards of ' Thai tourism of old ' if you get my drift.

They do not wish to be seen as encouraging this ' type ' of tourism.

тАЬNon-marital sexual relationships between foreigners and Lao citizens are against the law, as are various forms of cohabitation with Lao nationals. Convictions for such offences CAN lead to prison sentences and large fines. Improper registration of a relationship to a Lao national can lead to similar sentences. Permission for marriage or engagement to a Lao citizen must be submitted in a formal application to Lao authorities.тАЭ

I've never heard of a law such as this except for the Nazi Racial Laws

1864, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

тАЬThe United States is one of a few countries in the world to have enacted laws restricting and prohibiting sex and marriage between whites and blacks or other persons of color. Nazi Germany and South Africa share most famously in this dubious distinction. [...] The bans in Germany and South Africa began and ended during the twentieth century. But American prohibitions against interracial sex and marriage began in the 1600s тАУ almost as soon as white Europeans and black Africans set foot on the shores of the New World тАУ and persisted, in some cases, until the turn of the millennium. Even in the colonies where slavery did not become the basis of the socioeconomic system, some legislatures enacted laws on interracial sex and marriage. Among the original thirteen colonies, all except Connecticut, New Hampshire, and New Jersey enacted laws punishing sex and marriage across the color line.

Most of the colonies that did establish such laws had them in place by 1750. Maryland and Virginia enacted the earliest statutes during the 1660s, and the laws from these two colonies seem to have provided a blueprint for those enacted elsewhere. In each colony, the prohibitions were directed at whites and тАЬNegroes or mulattoes,тАЭ and in some cases between whites and Native Americans, but the matter of which behaviors were prohibited varied greatly from colony to colony. As of 1700, Delaware and South Carolina forbade bastardy and/or fornication but not marriage, while Rhode Island prohibited marriage only, Georgia and Massachusetts outlawed illicit marriage and sex, and the other colonies proscribed some combination of fornication, bastardy or marriage. And by 1800, in every colony that banned interracial sex and/or marriage, all except Delaware, Georgia, and South Carolina also punished ministers or magistrates for solemnizing a marriage ceremony between a white person and a person of color. Ten of the thirteen original colonies thus enacted bans or restrictions on intermarriage within one hundred years after settlement.

In the history of the American colonies and states, only eight never restricted or banned interracial relations: Alaska, Connecticut, Hawaii, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Vermont, and Wisconsin. Following the Civil War and the emancipation of slaves, such laws burgeoned, particularly in the West, where some legislatures prohibited relations between whites and Native Americans, Chinese, Mongolians, Japanese, Filipinos, or тАЬHindoosтАЭ as well as those between whites and African Americans. For a brief period after the war, Mississippi lawmakers went so far as to make marriage between white and black persons a felony punishable by life imprisonment. In the thirty years following the war, six southern states тАУ Alabama (1865), Tennessee (1870), North Carolina (1875), Florida (1885), Mississippi (1890), and South Carolina (1895) тАУ even amended their state constitutions to include bans on intermarriage. and in two of these six states, the prohibitions did not officially end until 1998 and 2000 тАУ some thirty years after the U.S. Supreme Court had declared them unconstitutional.тАЭ

Fay Botham, Almighty God Created the Races: Christianity, Interracial Marriage, and American Law, 2009: 51-53

Hi,

This thread can go back and forth. Posters can correctly quote Lao law on what it says about sleeping with Lao nationals.You can quote Thai law saying that prostitution is illegal. People on the ground say Lao has changed beyond all recognition this last few years and although many of these laws are on the books, they are not really enforced.

As I have said, it has not been an issue taking people back to the hotels in Vientiane. Gay bars are open and functioning as are the presence of visible ladyboys on the streets and in the bars.

There are signs up in some bars telling tourists not to taker in ' Working girls ' such as Khop Chai Deu restaurant. It is therefore fairly obvious that the authorities know these practices are going on and are choosing to ignore or turn a blind eye to it.

[Brisboy82]

Hi,

This thread can go back and forth. Posters can correctly quote Lao law on what it says about sleeping with Lao nationals.You can quote Thai law saying that prostitution is illegal. People on the ground say Lao has changed beyond all recognition this last few years and although many of these laws are on the books, they are not really enforced.

As I have said, it has not been an issue taking people back to the hotels in Vientiane. Gay bars are open and functioning as are the presence of visible ladyboys on the streets and in the bars.

There are signs up in some bars telling tourists not to taker in ' Working girls ' such as Khop Chai Deu restaurant. It is therefore fairly obvious that the authorities know these practices are going on and are choosing to ignore or turn a blind eye to it.

Indeed. My guesthouse in luang prabang had a notice on the wall with rules including ones indicating that bring Laos into the rooms is forbidden. And yet very time my guests arrived they were welcomed and treated like a paying guest. The taff even kept one friends motorbike inside the reception at night for safekeeping. They were very accommodating to my guests and had no problems at all.