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The Documentary: Myanmar's Sex Vote

Sex Workers

04/04/2017 GMT

Myanmar's Sex Vote

BBC World Service - The Documentary, Myanmar's Sex Vote

How Burmese MPs and sex workers are joining forces to improve lives

How Burmese MPs and sex workers are joining forces to improve lives.

When political activists like Daw Sander Min were imprisoned for their campaigns on behalf of Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy they were locked up alongside sex workers criminalised by Myanmar's harsh laws against prostitution. Now Sandar Min is an MP and Thuzar Win addresses parliament on behalf of the Sex Workers in Myanmar network, and they’ve joined forces to improve the lives of Burmese people.
 
What draws the women together is a shared vision for their country. With Myanmar poised to become the new global centre of sex tourism, Sandar Min and Thuzar Win are adamant that Myanmar’s future wellbeing, as well as that of the thousands of young people forced into sex work every year, depends upon the decriminalisation of prostitution. So important is it that, as Daw Sandar Min says, 'I am not ashamed to speak out. Success in the 2015 elections gives us the opportunity to bring about the change we need.'
 
In this documentary journalist Thin Lei Win is in Yangon finding out how Sandar Min and Thuzar Win are getting on in their bid to amend legislation which dates back 70 years. She talks to health professionals, politicians, lawyers and young people - some of them sex workers - about the difference this would make to them. One young woman, mistaken for a sex worker and imprisoned for six months, says whoever changes the law will get her vote.

(Photo: Members of the sex-worker advocacy group Aye Myanmar)

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