Myanmar's War Has Forced Doctors and Nurses Into Prostitution

After seven years of medical school in Myanmar, May finally achieved her goal of becoming a doctor. But a month after she graduated and found a job, her dreams started unraveling.

- SUI-LEE WEE

In February 2021, Myanmar's military seized power in a coup, and the country's economy, already hammered by the pandemic, started to buckle. Prices soared and May's paycheck, the equivalent of $415 a month, evaporated even faster. With her father suffering from kidney disease, she grew more and more desperate.

Then she met "date girls," who were making twice as much as her. The money was enticing—even if it involved sex with men. "It's difficult to accept that, despite all my years of study to become a doctor, I'm now doing this kind of work just to make ends meet," said May, 26, who has been working as a prostitute for over a year in Mandalay, Myanmar's second-largest city. She, like others who spoke for this article, asked not to be identified by her full name because her family does not know how she earns money and prostitution is illegal in Myanmar.