SINGAPORE – Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, Danna, a transgender “social escort” in Manila, has been afraid to meet strangers. As another important person to hire, Danna’s paintings would involve intimate acts with clients.
Strict measures to stop the spread of COVID-19 in the Philippines and Asia have hampered work involving close contacts in most productive cases. For staff like Danna, this has been a curse and a blessing, depriving them of their livelihoods and also reducing their threat of infection.
“Part of me is desperate to get back to work so I can earn money and help my family during this time, while another part of me is nervous to meet people while there’s still a danger I can get sick, and then make my family sick,” Danna was quoted as saying in a blog post on Smooci, a U.K.-based escort booking platform that operates across Asia — Bangkok, Singapore, Manila, Kuala Lumpur, Phnom Penh, Hong Kong, Macao and Tokyo.
The handful of stories shared on the site provide a window of how the pandemic threatens some of Asia’s most vulnerable people. Although the legality of the industry varies from position to position, the industry sometimes operates outside of society, with equipment warning that much of the staff does not have access to government safety nets.
Although some economies are slowly reopening, foreign tourism in the region remains non-existent and social estrangement measures exist, severely restricting workers’ options.
In Thailand, an escort named Tan spoke of monetary tension and isolation. “I stayed in Bangkok because I needed to work. But I didn’t have many customers. Now I can’t make money, I can’t even be with my family,” he said in Smooci.
Smooci’s executive leader Kal Kingsley told Nikkei Asian Review that his services and sex industry in Asia generally nearly stopped after the outbreak of the pandemic, leaving escorts worried and desperate. “We continue to see that partners register, and around 50-80% are forced to work, but in reality, consumers and bookings are not there,” he said.
He said the platform, described in some media as “Uber for companions,” experienced general closures in Manila, Singapore, Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpur in April and May, amid strict measures to curb virus transmissions. Activity in Bangkok has fallen to about 10% of normal.
Pressed by revenue, some in the company have turned to online alternatives, such as billing for personal photos and videos or providing live programming. But Kingsley said they are not the best substitutes, adding that the “webcam” is “highly competitive” and in decline.
“It’s also vital to note that cameras pay much less, and many escorts, especially in Southeast Asia, are financially guilty for entire families,” he said. These also require other skills, paint schedules, gadgets and personal spaces.
Scammers only complicate the paints of those who paint in the industry for a living. Some have created fake online profiles to attract consumers, a practice known as “bait and change” that Kingsley said was not unusual in Singapore. Some scammers ask unsuspecting customers to move the budget in exchange for sexual favors, only to disappear once the cash has replaced their hands.
Police in the city-state reported nearly 240 “credit for sex” scams in the first three months of 2020, up about 40% from the same period of 2019. The problem did not go away despite the coronavirus restrictions imposed in April: At least 20 men reported being victims of such scams that month, losing a total of around 50,000 Singapore dollars ($36,000).
Offline, spots in the city-state where sex workers congregate remain quieter than usual.
Orchard Towers, a shopping mall known for its clutch of rowdy pubs and massage parlors in Singapore’s prime retail district, was all but deserted during the economic shutdown that lasted until June. The impact is still being felt.
“Most of the girls are Filipinas and [from] some other countries, so after lockdown they don’t have any money,” Hameed Sulthan, owner of a convenience store at Orchard Towers, told Nikkei. “I hear most of the girls go back to their home country,” he said.
On Monday night, a handful of Orchard Towers’ massage joints were open, along with a few pubs, but many establishments were still shuttered. Although a few workers beckoned passersby, the scene was far from business as usual.
Project X, a nonprofit group in Singapore that supports sex workers, told Nikkei that the temporary shutdown of entertainment facilities — including licensed brothels — left many people with no source of income. And since many were migrant workers who did not have official documentation and could not reveal the nature of their jobs for fear of legal repercussions, they were ineligible for the government’s coronavirus aid, according to Vanessa Ho, Project X’s executive director.
Using donations, the organization introduced a program last April to help sex personnel with their rentals, food and medical expenses. He gave coupons to more than 130 people while listening to his problems.
“Many sex staff members do what they do to help their children, their parents, and themselves,” Ho said. “Since the maximum of their source of income is used to help their dependents, very few of them have savings, leaving them in a very vulnerable position.”
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