While the world reels from the staggering devastation caused by the Asian tsunami disaster, there are early signs that people are trying to pick themselves up and put their lives together again. For example, sex workers are slowly getting back to business in Indonesia:

“Less than 100 metres away along a road choked with overturned cars and debris from ruined shops, the lights are coming back on as staff and customers slowly trickle in. The normally smiling barmen and escort women join Westerners on barstools in downing whisky and chain-smoking. One girl chokes back tears as she runs to the rest room while another collapses in grief at the bar.
‘I did not work for three days after my best friend Ning was crushed to death by two cars over there,’ says a sex worker, pointing to the remains of a massage parlour.” —The Financial Express (Bangladesh)

While three days does not seem like a particularly long time to mourn when you’ve seen your best friend squashed by a ton of metal, you can’t forget that these sex workers are probably in dire need of money. It’s hard to blame them for working to fulfill their needs, especially when the tsunami doesn’t seem to have cast a wet blanket over the libidinal needs of Western tourists:

“Meanwhile, the Thai resort of Patong Beach was getting back to business yesterday. Two days after more than 60 people drowned, the bars re-opened and girls went back to work entertaining male tourists. A British holidaymaker, who described himself as a plumber and heating engineer and who had been in Patong for two months, said: ‘You can’t stop the sex trade. There’s people that’s addicted to it.’” —The Mirror (UK)

On a more uplifting note, sex workers are trying not just to provide for themselves but also to make larger contributions. For example, in India, hookers are donating their wages to the relief effort:

“Sex workers in Ahmednagar and the district have come forward to donate over Rs 13,000 — their day’s earning — as a humanitarian gesture for those affected by Tsunami tidal waves in southern India. The women, under the banner of Snehalaya, an organisation working for women in flesh trade and their children, have already sent Rs 10,000 to the Prime Minister’s Relief fund, according to Snehalaya trustee P S Savedker. Further, the prostitutes and flesh workers from various red light areas of the city on Tuesday handed over a cheque of Rs 3,475 to the local Indian Express Citizens Relief Fund branch, he said.” —Sify News (India)

Similarly, at least one prominent Gay and Lesbian group is donating its resources to the relief effort:

“As the death toll from Sunday’s earthquake and tsunamis rockets past 100,000, dozens of relief organizations are working overtime to provide immediate and long-term relief to survivors. One of the organizations raising money is the Rainbow World Fund (www.rainbowfund.org), the first LGBT world relief agency… ‘Suffering is universal, and the LGBT community knows more than a little bit about that,’ Cotter says.” —Planet Out (US)

Of course, the tsunami has not left gays without their own causes for mourning. While there was a “gay tsunami survivor among first to report,” as a headline at Gay City News put it, there was also a tremendous loss of gay beach:

“Among the thousands of coastal towns struck by the tsunami, one was southern Thailand’s Phuket Island which includes Patong Beach, ‘the busiest beach, with a gay nightlife you never expected to find anywhere,’ according to 365Gay.com. There has been a Phuket Gay Pride Festival each February since 1999, though the resort attracts a wide range of tourists. As of Tuesday, Thailand was estimating that at least 130 people were killed at Phuket.” —Gay City News (US)

Against this dismal panorama of desperation, the nobler efforts of sex workers and homosexuals should be lauded — especially given the fact that, as other “sex and the tsunami” stories emerge in the coming months, they will no doubt be of a mostly depressing or even criminal nature. Just as victims are turning to looting to satisfy their hunger, so too will there be creeps who take advantage of the situation and turn to rape in order to satisfy their sexual urges. There will be relief workers who sodomize starving seven-year-olds for a rupee or two. (Thailand has already been one of the main destinations for sex-touring pedophiles. What’s to think they won’t exploit the fact that, as a result of the tsunami, people will be increasingly needy?)

UPDATE 03 Jan 2005. “A teenager who escaped death but was left orphaned and homeless by the Asian tsunami met yet one more agony: gang rape, one of several cases of child abuse being investigated in the disaster zone, an official said. Of all the human tragedies emerging from the worst natural disaster in decades, sexual abuse of vulnerable children in refugee camps must be among the most shocking. But experts say it’s not uncommon in times of conflict and trauma… De Silva gave few details of the case of the gang-raped 17-year-old girl, which occurred in the area of Galle on the southern coast but not in a refugee center. Hours after being washed ashore and left orphaned and homeless, she was raped by six men, he said.” (Thanks to alanr for the link.)

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