Why Thailand's sex trade relies on western pornography

Two girls, aged 13 and 14, lie trapped inside a shed at the back of a brothel in Thailand.

They’ve been raped, abused and tortured, all in the name of money.

Picture a set of cameras, capturing every second of pain, suffering and humiliation.

Those moments become a film, that film becomes a DVD, and that DVD is sent to the south of Thailand, where it will be sold to preying men who seek to fulfil their sexual desires.

As shocking as the story may seem, the same narrative is happening in reverse, only the source is the western world, and the link is pornography.

A United Nations report released in 2014 said more than 2.4 million people were being trafficked at any given time.

Yet this same report says that two out of every five countries had not reported a single conviction.

For JD Koppel, a 27-year-old worker for Destiny Rescue, that was the biggest shock.

“Just realising that this stuff is actually really happening, but not just that it is happening, but how rampant it is and how popular it is,” said Mr Koppel.

In light of the under-reporting, Mr Koppel says these statistics heavily rely on governmental reporting and cooperation.

“Take a place like Thailand for example. They will tell you that prostitution is illegal and doesn’t happen there. That’s what they release in their official reports,” Mr Koppel said.

Mr Koppel said their most up-to-date figures estimated more than 1.8 million children alone were being trafficked.

Heather Pound, the founder of the Holding Hope Collection, cites the total number of trafficked individuals at 20 million to 30 million, though precise figures are hard to come by due to failures in reporting.

The one square-kilometre area she worked around in Kolkata, India, had 10,000 trafficked women alone.

Mr Koppel said many people see the problem as far removed from the western world. However, pornography has linked them inextricably.

The DVDs of the adolescent sex slaves being raped and abused were sold primarily to western tourists.

Sex tourism, that is selling sex to international tourists, makes up a significant portion of Thailand’s economy, so much so that its economy now relies on it.

And one of the biggest drivers is pornography.

Mrs Pound sees a direct link between pornography and sex trafficking stating that it promotes the sex trade.

“Porn teaches and reinforces the belief, that makes sex slavery possible, that is, that it turns woman and children into sexually commodities.”

Similarly, Mr Koppel draws connections between the sex trade in Thailand and the pornography of the western world.

“Pornography gives a distorted view of what is considered OK. People will see stuff online and it will become normalised for them, whether it is bestiality or sex with children,” Mr Koppel said.

“It opens up the door to that fetish and desire, and places like Thailand offer the opportunity for that desire to be fulfilled, not just through a computer screen but through actually buying a kid and fulfilling those fetishes and desires.”

For Mr Koppel, the seeds start small, but continue to grow further and further adrift.

A trouble in a marriage might lead to pornography. That becomes normal.

So they get bored and move on to the next extreme - child pornography. That becomes normal.

Soon they begin to look at middle-aged men raping young girls. That becomes normal.

Next thing they are on a business trip to Thailand and they pass a brothel with little kids.

Mr Koppel confirms a number of these accounts, with small variations, in middle-aged men he has spoken to during his time with Destiny Rescue.

He also confirmed that most of their victims range between 5-10 years old.

Another keen fighter is Dean Lovell-Shipley, who started the Find Her Smile project in Auckland, with the objective of educating and empowering youth in New Zealand with regards to sex trafficking overseas.

“For me, I have two nieces, three and five years old, who I adore with all my heart. My faith convinces me that these girls in Southeast Asia are no different than my little nieces, and someone has to stick up for them,” Mr Lovell-Shipley said.

“I just hate how much pornography and that view of women is becoming really, really normal.”

The reality is, the international sex trade relies on pornography as a means of advertising.

“The supply of trafficked girls won’t stop until the demand does,” Mrs Pound said. “It’s been increasing rapidly around the world with the increase in pornography.

“Disordered sexual desire fuels sex trafficking and one of the biggest causes of disordered sexual desire is addiction to pornography.”

And the conversation is as relevant as ever, as shown through prominent Kiwi Olympian Nick Willis, who recently publicly admitted to having a porn addiction.