[Tee tiong huat]

After 7-years of medical school in Myanmar, finally her goal of becoming a doctor a month after she graduated then found a job, her dreams started unraveling. In Feb 2021, Myanmar’s military seized power in a coup, the country’s economy, hammered by COVID-19 pandemic, started to buckle. Prices soared, & May’s paycheck equivalent of $415 a month, evaporated even faster. W/her father suffering from kidney disease, she grew more and more desperate,  she met "date girls,” making twice as much as her, money was enticing — even if it involved sex with men. It’s difficult to accept despite all years of study to become a doctor, I’m kind of work just to make ends meet,” said May, 26, who work as a prostitute over a year in Mandalay 2nd-largest city. She, like others who spoke for this article, asked not be identified b'cos her family does not know how she earns money, been a Dr & as prostitution is illegal in Myanmar.

The coup ensuing civil war ravaged Myanmar’s economy. Inflation soared to 26% this year.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/16/world...ution.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/16/world...ution.html
According to the World Bank.This calamity has forced a new cadre of women in Myanmar into sex work: doctors, teachers, nurses and other educated professionals.

It is hard to track how many women are involved in the trade, but women plying the streets have become much more apparent. In interviews, half a dozen women — four white-collar workers who have turned to prostitution and two rights activists — said that more educated women are now having sex with men to make a living.

Following the coup, women were at the forefront of protests. They marched on the streets and hung up their sarongs as a hex against soldiers. There was a flicker of hope over dismantling Myanmar’s deep-rooted patriarchy. But the rise in prostitution is another blow to the status of women, who have been sexually abused by the military for decades.