CDNPHOTOGRAPHER
THE FORGOTTEN PEOPLE: CANADIAN GERRY YAUM’S
PHOTOS OF THAILAND’S SEX WORKERS
By: Kat - 15 January 2014
In a different land far away, men and women strip their clothes and put their bodies up for sale in the streets and go-go bars in sex tourism places. The lucrative business is hardly a secret; many men and women are forced to go into prostitution because of poverty and the lure of easy money. In 1994, a documentary showcasing the sex workers in Thailand brought the situation to the attention of Canadian photographer Gerry Yaum.
With his camera, Yaum traveled to Thailand two years later and has since made it his advocacy to raise awareness about the stories and situation of the sex workers in the city of Pattaya. His work is now compiled into an exhibition entitled “Body Sellers: The Sex Workers of Thailand,” featuring photos created and collated between 2007 and 2012.
In an interview with Slate, Yaum says he decided to take his subjects’ photographs against a white backdrop. This particular set-up has a meaning; he says of his decision: “I felt the technique was a bit like putting a spotlight on something. It focuses your point of view. There is nowhere for viewers to hide. They must confront the subject.”
Yaum’s portfolio contains a short history of the photos — a story behind the frames, his narrative of how he came to take portraits of these men, women, and ladyboys. In “Sex Worker 2007,” Yaum explains how he wanted to create a record of these “often forgotten people.” During the course of his work, he often found that the sex workers he met previously would be gone years later — to a different bar perhaps, or a different sex tourism scene. In using his white background large format photos, Yaum says he wanted to “create a permanent record, to document who they were…these people are important and should be remembered.”
The series continues with “Sex Worker 2009,” where he expands his set to include more male workers and also revisited the people whom he took photos of in 2007.
In “Ladyboy Sex Worker,” Yaum recalls his initial shocked state at first encountering the ladyboys of Thailand. He spent 5 weeks photographing ladyboys working in shortime bars and rooms.
Through his work, Yaum hopes to raise awareness on the situations that force many of these workers to go into the sex industry. While many of these workers say their earnings help bring food to the table for their families, there is often a deep and underlying sadness behind the faces.
But Yaum has faced many challenges. One is learning to overcome the language barrier. To overcome this, Yaum himself learned how to speak Thai to better communicate with his subjects. He also had to deal with bar owners who were often hostile. And because of the ever-changing flux of the sex tourism world, some of those he photographed could not be found in the following years he visited.
In his Slate interview, Yaum expresses the difficulty of exposing the exploitation without doing the expatiation act himself. He says he had to analyze within himself his own motivations for doing what he did. Yaum adds, “In your inner heart you know why you’re doing something…If you’re doing something for the right reasons, for a greater good, then that’s the path you want to be on.”
Yaum also acknowledges the difficulty of the advocacy he is pursuing. The sex industry is still alive, no thanks to the real and present threat of poverty. For Yaum, education may be the key to hope for the sex workers, allowing them access to other opportunities beyond the beer bars and the streets. Until then, he hopes that through his photographs, the real plight of these workers would be brought to wider public attention.
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