Sex workers at the Royal Garden Shopping Plaza

Sir,

I arrange tourist visits to Pattaya and have been pleased to see over the past few years that most of the sex workers have been removed from the Royal Garden Shopping Plaza.

However, I have now been in Pattaya for the past three weeks with my family and as my three children enjoy playing on the games machines on the third floor level I have personally experienced the reason for many of the recent complaints from my clients regarding the underage sex workers that are reappearing there.

On almost every occasion I have taken my children to the games area during this time I have been approached at all times of the day by one particular 17 year old boy. He readily admits he is an underage sex worker without ID and waits to pick up farang clients at the games machines and the balcony area that leads to RipleyтАЩs, he also appears to be an тАШagentтАЩ for other workers. I have seen him approach and be approached and go off with farang customers, which apart from his age making it illegal also gives the Royal Plaza a bad name and gives parents of children playing in the area cause for concern for their safety.

As so many children enjoy this area and as parents wish to feel that their children are in a safe area we have up until now promoted this Plaza as one of the shopping highlights in Pattaya for both its range of shops and its safe environment.
I did raise the question with security staff in the Plaza but they did not seem interested in the problem and in fact one was seen being handed money by the boy. We have now received so many adverse comments during the past few weeks about this situation from some of my tourist clients that we are temporarily stopping the child care service that we offer to clients whereby our female staff take clientsтАЩ children to the games area whilst parents shop and are informing parents of the current situation. We have also learned that men looking for young boys are being directed to the Plaza which indicates a return to the bad old days of that Plaza a few years ago and of course a danger to children who are there quite innocently.

It hoped that by bringing this to your attention, the Royal Garden Plaza management and the police will be able to take action to remove this boy and his fellow workers from the Plaza making it once again a place that both adults and children can feel comfortable spending time in. Maybe the Pattaya Mail is able to solicit a response on the situation from the PlazaтАЩs management where I have been unsuccessful in doing so.

In hope
Paul Adams
Adams Thai Travel Experiences


Royal Garden Plaza responds:

First of all, we greatly appreciate your information. As your concern, we do not ignore this issue, but we have also been monitoring this problem seriously. In addition, we would take your concern as our first priority to make you feel safe.
If any annoyance to our customers, we would record the pictures of any suspect sex workers and remove them from Plaza immediately. Not only to prevent this unexpected occurrence, but also to make our customers feel safe as well as comfortable spending time in the Plaza. We distribute pictures of suspected sex workers to our security guards to monitor those people before getting into Plaza areas.

Once again, we fully thank you for your information and your concern. We do hope that our actions would relieve your concerns and allow you to feel more comfortable and enjoy spending time in the Plaza.

Regards,
Suvit Vathna
Plaza Manager
Royal Garden Plaza Pattaya

http://www.pattayamail.com/current/letters.shtml#hd5

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[ikarus]

re

If the security guards there are anything like those at other places (Silom Complex in Bangkok comes to mind) at least some of the security guards will be pointing out potential customers to the "working" boys

Tourists often say they want to see The Real Thailand. This is it! Teenage prostitution, drugs, corruption and probably "donations" to the boys in brown to stay out of it.

Say, how it is going with the BBC hidden camera crew? Are they still in Pattaya or is it safe to walk down Beach Road by now without being taped and cross-edited with scenes of some glue-sniffing street kids? :glasses11:

Pattaya? care factor?

Sir,

I arrange tourist visits to Pattaya and have been pleased to see over the past few years that most of the sex workers have been removed from the Royal Garden Shopping Plaza.

Royal Garden Plaza responds:

First of all, we greatly appreciate your information.

The recent threads about a scam where punters after picking up a boy and then after business was done were then confronted at their hotel and substantial sums of money demanded did in two cases originate at the RGP where the initial meeting took place.

RGP also have a policy of turning over their CCTV recordings to the police who have recently been working with a foreign film crew illustrating the problem of the underage sex trade in Thailand.

I am also informed by collegues working with CPU in Pattaya that the presence of farang police in RGP has now been increased following the complaint which was also made to the police and the Mayor as well as the CPU in Bangkok.

How does any of this make Pattaya any different than other world wide cities of the same size or bigger? Not condoning it, just making a point.

BBC undercover.... hmm... is it that MacIntyre fellow again? I remember when he was in Milan and discovered that the teenage models in the fashion industry were less in front of the camera than in bed with Italian men.

http://macintyre.com/

I always wondered why tourists want to bring their kids to Pattaya and to South Pattaya in particular. ...

From what I have seen in holiday brochures that promote Thailand almost every package included 'the lively beach resort of Pattaya'.

I would imagine that most people with or without families who do not know Pattaya take at face value the blurb the brochures put in front of people and do not bother to research the destinations themselves. After all if you are paying a professional tour company for a holiday most people would tend to take on face value what the company tells them about each desitnation.

[Hmmm]

Most of the people who know Pattaya's reputation are those who have some prurient interest in that reputation. I include myself in that group.

The rest of the world is largely unaware. My sister in the UK asked me about the very attractive Pattaya packages she was seeing in the UK press. She has been to Thailand before but didn't know Pattaya. I used the description from one of the Thailand guide books - "one big whorehouse".

Pattaya just won some award in Russia as SE Asia's top holiday destination. Makes you wonder doesn't it ? Along with that apparently undiscerning market, Pattaya now obviously taps an almost inexhaustible source of tourists from new markets in Asia, such as China.

I might be more sympathetic to a foreign guy running a business for foreigners in a foreign country if he wasn't lecturing the locals about the sensitivities of his affluent clients and showed some greater understanding of the problem beyond the impact on his business.

To bring unknowing tourists to a well-known brothel and then complain when they find sex there is disingenuous to say the least.