Left with no choice?

As the sun sets, many men and women crowd the numerous bars in Thimphu. Around a corner table in one substandard hotel-cum-bar, two men sit with a beautiful teenage girl. Sipping beer and whisky, they talk and laugh, and occasionally, the men touch her mischievously. She does not seem to mind it. Later, she retires to a room in the hotel. One of the men follows her.

Scenes such as the one described above are repeated in hotels and bars around Thimphu. With rising unemployment and rural-urban migration, unofficial prostitution, regular or part-time, is on the rise in the major towns in Bhutan.

Watching TV, reading magazines, living in a city, looking at rich people wear good clothes and drive nice cars; money seems to hold the key to all things good and beautiful. When the impression that "if only I had more money, everything will be great" takes hold of a young girl's mind, especially one who has no job or good family support, she is driven into what seems to be the easiest way to make money.

Bhutan is not an exception in this. From Lhasa to Tokyo, sex trade flourishes. It was sad to read in a recent news article that many Tibetan girls work as prostitutes in the pink parlors that now dot the streets of the holy Lhasa.

Even in developed Japan, teenage prostitution is an issue that catches much public attention. In a practice known as 'enjo kosai' (assisted dating), teenage student girls meet up with older working men for sex for money. Japan Times recently reported that even girls from decent families engage in this kind of prostitution just to make easy money to buy designer clothes and expensive gadgets they are after.

Today, all the developed countries survive and thrive on stocks, shares, bonds and stock markets supported by various companies and big corporate entities. That is how the modern societies make a living. And developing countries are fast following suit. This is the age of global capitalism in the realm of which money is the King. In the face of all evils that money worship gives rise to, is there a way by which we can save our young girls from treading the path to self-destruction?

As we develop further, the situation may only get worse unless we take timely precautions. Safe sex practices and condom use must be encouraged and made popular among them. Legalizing sex trade is out of the question. It should never happen. Nor will a drive to clamp it down with police force be successful in the long run. We have to study the factors that drive these women into the trade and take measures to help them make a decent living as well as prevent other women from being driven into the trade. By ignoring it, the problem, which is small now, will only become bigger.