Massage Parlors Closed by Junta-backed Women's Group

Massage parlors at Three Pagoda Pass in Karen State have been forced to close by the leader of a Burmese government-backed women's association who quarreled with her husband for visiting a parlor.

Aye Aye Lwin, the head of the Myanmar Women Affairs Federation in the township, allegedly found her husband Tin Win, the head of the township Peace and Development Council of the junta, in a massage parlor in the township o­n June 7, according to Three Pagoda Pass residents. She asked Tin Win to immediately return home, but   
her husband refused.

After that, the source said, Tin Win complained that his wife had put him to shame in front of his government official friends, and they quarreled at the massage parlor.

Soon after that, the wife went to the local police station and told officers to close the massage parlors. Police refused her request, saying it was a family's internal affair.

The next day, Aye Aye Lwin ordered the massage parlors to close in the name of the Myanmar Women's Affairs Federation. She said the massage parlors made husbands guilty of misconduct.

Most women in the Three Pagoda Pass area were said to be in favor of closing the massage parlors.

“I am so happy with the order because I don't like my son and my husband to go to those places,” said a woman resident of Three Pagoda Pass. “It is not a real massage parlor because some girls at the parlors sell sex."

According to local residents, there are two massage parlors in Three Pagoda Pass. They are run under the name of a Karen ceasefire group called Nyain Chan Yaye. The parlors are visited mostly by men. Female workers are under age 20. Many female workers are from Rangoon and Moulmein, who come to the border to find work.

The source said a normal massage cost 120 baht (US $3.40). For sex, the cost is 150 baht ($4.30) per hour or 650 baht ($18.70) for all night.