“Chat girls” in Laos forced into prostitution at a Golden Triangle casino

Inside China-run Golden Triangle Economic Zone next to the Mekong River in far northern Laos, many young women from neighbouring countries come to look for jobs to make a decent income to support their families back home.

Many of the vacancies would advertise as “chat girls” to sell shares in the new company to casino patrons, but many struggled to reach the unrealistically high sales goals and ended up exchanging sex to repay their application costs and moving expenses.

A young woman from Vientiane spoke to she told Radio Free Asia. She said she worked at Kings Romans Casino in Lao’s region of the Golden Triangle bordering Thailand and was told to start selling her body just months after being hired and had already committed to taking on her debt.

“We need to persuade up to 100 people to buy the company stock. It was difficult for me.”

As most of them are only able to…