Happy Endings
In the Thai Massage industry
Happy Endings was a 2017 cross-platform investigation by SBS Thai and The Feed into the largely hidden provision of sexual services through suburban Thai massage businesses in Australia, and the complex legal, labour, migration and safety issues surrounding the industry.
The investigation examined how some legitimate massage businesses operated alongside, or in a grey area with, premises offering sexual services, and the particular vulnerabilities faced by migrant workers. Through interviews with workers, business owners, police, researchers and sex-worker support organisations, it explored questions of exploitation and consent, visa insecurity, access to sexual-health services, fear of authorities, workplace safety and the
difficulties of regulating businesses operating outside recognised sex-industry frameworks. It also examined the impact on legitimate Thai massage businesses and workers facing sexual harassment and assumptions that massage automatically involved sexual services.
Produced across radio, online and television, the project demonstrated the potential of collaboration between SBS's multilingual journalism and its mainstream current-affairs platforms: drawing on the language, community knowledge and source networks of SBS Thai while bringing the investigation to a wider Australian audience through The Feed.
The investigation was produced by Parisuth Sodsai for SBS Thai Radio and Online and Elise Potaka for The Feed, with Florencia Melgar as Coordinating Producer, Cross-platform, alongside a broader SBS production and editorial team.
https://www.sbs.com.au/language/thai/en/creative/happy-endings/xy7fm83ua