Four girls under 18 were among 10 females allegedly providing sex for customers of an Udon Thani karaoke bar raided on Thursday night.
Officials of the Interior Ministry’s Department of Provincial Administration conducted the raid on the Muang district club known as Tor Yai on Soi Pracharat.
The bar is believed to belong to the wife of a police senior sergeant major assigned to Muang Udon Thani. Her name has not been released.
Involved in the 11.50pm raid were Ronnarong Thipsiri, head of the department’s investigation and suppression division, Mana Simma, its legal adviser, Udon Thani deputy governor Pramote Thanyapeud and Pol Lt-Col Supat Thamthanarak, chief of the Department of Special Investigation’s anti-human trafficking division.
They found a 16-year-old and three 17-year-old girls among the bar’s 10 female employees.
Officials allege that customers paid a fee to take them off the premises for sex.
A schoolteacher’s complaint to the Ronnasit Foundation for Woman and Child Human Trafficking Victims about a female student working at the bar prompted the raid. The student was among the four underaged girls found in the raid.
Ronnarong said officials would charge the owner with human trafficking, procuring women for prostitution and running a service business without a permit.
The governor will be asked to order the bar closed for five years.
Supat said he would ask the DSI to take over the case from Udon Thani investigators since a local policeman could be linked to the bar.
All 10 alleged sex workers were interviewed by a multi-disciplinary team at Udon Thani Children’s Home to determine which ones required protection and rehabilitation.
