KUALA LUMPUR: When Sara heard that young men were logging on to Facebook in order to hire sex workers, she was angry. When a friend told her that an image of her scantily clad on a beach in Malaysia appeared, she was angry. “I don't know what to do,” she told Bikyamasr.com, referring to the recent use of photos of Malaysian girls from their personal Facebook accounts to promote to men looking for sex workers in the country, which the Sin Chew Daily uncovered this week. It reported that the syndicate would download the photographs of the Asian girls and upload them on its own page that offered “call girl” services. For 20-year-old Sara, a university student in Singapore visiting her family in Kuala Lumpur, she is flustered with the use of her image. “I wore that tiny bikini on a recent trip to Thailand and now it is all over the pages for men looking for girls. I am shocked and angry because this is unacceptable.” She doesn't know how the page, which has since been taken down by Facebook over violating the social network's policies, was able to access the image. “I am talking to some lawyers and the prosecutor here has asked if I want to file a lawsuit,” she said. The tactic on using young girls' photo was revealed by two men who paid RM330 (S$131) each into an account but later discovered they had been cheated when the girls failed to show up. For obvious reasons, they did not report the illegal activity to the police. According to the daily, the syndicate only accepted new customers. They charged prices lower than the “market price.” For women in Malaysia and across Asia, it is yet another example of the struggle to rid the sexualization of women from their societies. Sara said it is “sad that these people try to use our bodies for this purpose. We need it to end.”
