During a Wednesday morning operation, agents from the Provincial Administration Department (PAD) freed two minors from an illegal karaoke bar in Bangkok’s Muang Thong neighborhood.
Manrat Ratanasukon, director-general of the department, gave the go-ahead for the raid shortly after midnight after receiving a complaint that a karaoke bar called “Tukta Karaoke” on Putta Bucha Road in the Bang Mod sub-district had hired underage girls and that some of them may have been coerced into the sex trade.
14 female employees were discovered by the department’s special action squad, two of them were 16 and 17 years old. According to the national referral system, the two youngsters were sent to a rehabilitation facility.
The bar’s proprietor, whose identity has not been made public, faces charges of human trafficking and running an unlicensed entertainment establishment.
