EMPOWER

EMPOWER ("Education Means Protection Of Women Engaged in Recreation"), also known as Centre for Sex Workers' Protection or Moolniti Songserm Okard Pooying, is a non-profit organization in Thailand that supports sex workers by offering free classes in language, health, law and pre-college education, as well as individual counselling. The organization also lobbies the government to extend regular labor protections to sex workers and to decriminalize sex work. The organization maintains centres in Patpong (Bangkok), Chiang Mai, Mae Sai and Patong, Phuket. Philosophy EMPOWER is an organization that represents and provides services exclusively to sex workers. Unlike some Thai organizations operating in this field, EMPOWER's guiding principles include a non-judgmental stance on sex work and the belief that sex workers should not be pressured to leave the trade. Partly because of this, EMPOWER receives minimal financial support from the Thai government; the bulk of donations come from abroad. History After graduating from the Faculty of Sociology and Anthropology at Thammasat University, Chantawipa Apisuk commenced work at the Southeast Asia Resource Center in New York to further her studies and work on human rights issues. Following her return to Thailand in 1984, Apisuk and a group of sex workers in Patpong, Bangkok, Thailand founded EMPOWER that same year. Apisuk continues to serve as the organization's director and manages the head office in Nonthaburi Province. As of 2012, the organization operated centers in eleven provinces and reached over 20,000 sex workers on a regular basis. Over the 27 years that EMPOWER has existed, over 50,000 sex workers have been involved with the organization.