A RECENT survey by Public Health officials found there are now more than 7000 sex workers plying their trade in Phuket.

Public Health officials check bars in Patong and other ?red light? areas only twice a year, when they ask bar owners how many sex workers they have.

This time around, a total of 6229 women and 998 males openly admitted to making their living through prostitution.

The majority said they had come from north-eastern Thailand looking for lucrative work in bars and massage parlours.

The results of the survey were presented to Phuket?s Vice Governor, Tree Akaradath, last week.

Vice Governor Tree was told that many karaoke and girlie bars in places like Soi Bangla employed mamasans who controlled their younger charges.

But many of them did not encourage their girls to use condoms, leading to an increased risk of an HIV or other venereal infection, the survey found.

Public Health Department officials said the risk was even greater in rural provinces such as Phang Nga, where ignorance of HIV, especially among young people, was even more widespread than on Phuket, although there were fewer sex workers there.

Public Health officials said the real number of sex workers in Phuket could be much higher because many bar owners refused to let them into their bars,
and would not say how many sex workers they employed.

Prostitution is illegal in Thailand but officials tend to turn a blind eye and prosecutions are rare.

A spokesman for the Public Health Department said there were concerns that the number of sex workers would increase as unemployment rates rose.

A police spokesman said 375 people had been charged with prostitution offences between January and March this year.

Phuket is also a hotbed of HIV.

According to Public Health officials, the island ranks number three in Thailand for having the highest number of HIV cases.