It’s nearing midnight in an unadorned bar on a backstreet off Sükhbaatar Square, and 31 year-old Minjuur rubs her hands to shake off the cold.

Speaking in a whisper, she explains her average evening. Men pick her up from the park by the Central Tower office building, then they go to a nearby hotel for an hour of sex.

Minjuur has a small scar on her right upper cheek that is visible despite her makeup, and she counts on her fingers the number of friends who have died in her line of work. It is minus 20 degrees Celsius tonight, and Minjuur has a chest-rattling cough. Vodka helps her ward off the chill. She says the winter is hard.

Mongolia’s capital presents grim working conditions for the city’s prostitutes. Ulaanbaatar is often overlooked as a centre of prostitution, but – despite increased activity in border areas – it remains the hub for the country’s sex work and sexual trafficking. But as the city’s prostitutes experience violence and social stigma, some are navigating riskier working environments beyond the city.

“Most of these women working in this field are very poor and need cash,” said outreach officer Erdenesuren. “They are driven by necessity.” Erdenesuren – who like many Mongolians only uses one name – works for the NGO Perfect Ladies (In Mongolian: Tugs Busguichuud), which promotes prevention of sexually transmitted infections among prostitutes and helps them leave sex work.

The ger district of Ulaanbaatar, where many impoverished residents – including Minjuur – live Credit: Meghan Davidson Ladly

Prostitution and human trafficking are illegal within Mongolia but the sex trade is growing. While some women solicit openly on the streets of the capital, others work discreetly out of karaoke bars, saunas and massage parlours. Mongolia is a source, transit and destination country for sex labour.

According to a 2014 report from the United Nations Institute for Training and Research, between 3,000 and 5,000 women and children are trafficked each year from rural communities into cities and beyond the nation’s borders.

Unicef estimates that roughly 19,000 sex workers are active in Mongolia, however, some field workers cite much higher numbers. The state’s population sits at around 3 million. While male prostitutes do exist, they are a small minority.

The rapid growth of the country’s mining sector over the last decade has created a workforce of isolated men, thereby spurring on the industry. Skirting the border with China, the southern Gobi Desert – where mineral mining projects run by Rio Tinto and other global operations are located – has become a new focal point for prostitution.

“In Ulaanbaatar there is violence (against prostitutes) – from families and from working people – but inside the mining area everyone comes for the same goal: making money, and they don’t judge one another,” said Sorbonne University Ethnology Professor Gaëlle Lacaze.

Amidst lines of trucks parked against a barren expanse of sand, a converted bus-turned-café is the only option for some tea and conversation. Enkhtaivan Baatar is biding time at Tavan Tolgoi – a coal deposit in Ömnögovi province within the Gobi Desert.

The 39-year-old truck driver in a black hoodie is waiting for his coal shipment so he can drive his cargo across the border. He has been doing this job for three years, and has seen many prostitutes. Cars filled with women pull up off the highway and, when the price is settled, join the drivers in the cab of their truck.

Baatar also describes a sign close to the border that advertises women for sale and lists a number to call if interested. “Wherever there is money and men they come,” he said.

The ger district of Ulaanbaatar Credit: Meghan Davidson Ladly

Mongolia’s mining boom started in the early 2000s and mining now accounts for around 20 per cent of Mongolia’s gross domestic product. The growth in mining has created a spike in internal migration to mining areas – most notably Ömnögovi.

The country has a 0.03 per cent general prevalence rate of HIV among adults and, for Mongolians infected, treatment is free. As of 2017 data, however, only 32 per cent of people living with HIV knew their status.

“Mining industries are notorious hotspots for HIV infection,” said UNAIDS Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific Eamonn Murphy. “There is money around, and people are away from their homes and cultural, social and other inhibitors, and so they take risks that they wouldn’t normally.”

The coal route from the Tavan Tolgoi coal deposit to the Chinese border is synonymous with sex work fuelled by the mining industry. Despite being from the capital, 32 year-old Uka is intimately familiar with this stretch of transit. Uka has been earning a living as a sex worker in Mongolia for almost a decade.

Uka heading out for the night in the west end of Ulaanbaatar Credit: Meghan Davidson Ladly

The petite 32-year-old entered the industry to earn money after her daughter was born. She began in Ulaanbaatar, but now works along the border. Her clients – truck drivers – sometimes don’t have cash, so they pay her in fuel. Uka would rather work for diesel then return to the conditions facing prostitutes in Ulaanbaatar.

According to Uka, prostitutes in the capital face frequent violence from pimps and customers, but Ömnögovi is better. In contrast to the stigma felt in the city, she describes the border area as accepting and open. Uka explains that four or five women travel to the border area with a driver and rent a ger (a traditional round felted tent) to stay.

They need to travel in groups – it is dangerous to be a woman alone with so many truck drivers. Uka reaches up and adjusts an earring as she lists her rate: 50,000 MNT per act, with an hourly rate of 80,000 MNT and a daily rate of 200,000 MNT (roughly £14, £23 and £58). If the drivers don’t have cash, they pay in fuel: 40 or 50 litres of diesel for one act, 100 litres for one hour. The women then resell the fuel when they can for money.

Trucks in Ömnögovi province waiting to fill up with coal shipments before driving down to the border with China Credit: Meghan Davidson Ladly

Yet when Uka is soliciting in south Gobi, she is working without resources. “It’s risky there,” said Erdenesuren, of working near the Chinese border. “The ones who like to take risks go there.”

In Ulaanbaatar, there are STI awareness programmes and condom distribution, social workers like Erdenesuren try to check up on the women they know, but in the Gobi there is no such infrastructure. Uka explains how the women she works with buy contraceptives off one another when they run out, as there is no store to purchase more. Often customers don’t want to use them anyway.

Ulaanbaatar may offer prostitutes more contact with NGOs providing outreach, but it is a harsh environment for women working in the trade. Previously, Uka sold sex in a sauna in the capital where she alleges police and customers beat her. She claims ultra-nationalists target sex workers on the street and shave their heads to disgrace them. The Ulaanbaatar police did not respond to requests for comment on this story.

In Mongolia, sex work is an occupation shrouded in shame and silence. Erdenesuren cites the cycle of humiliation and fear that keeps women from reaching out to the police and family: “It is better to have your bones broken, then your name dishonoured.”

Uka explains that people don’t openly talk about prostitution and why women end up in sex work. She left school after eighth grade and has few options to earn an income. “For some women, it is easier to open their legs than go to the factory,” said Lacaze, “because they have no diplomas. She is alone with children, she has to eat.”

Uka admits that her daughter has no idea how her mum earns an income. Her family believes she is a cook. In Ulaanbaatar, Minjuur tells her family that her nights are spent serving in a bar. Both women support multiple dependents with their earnings. “Nobody knows what they are doing, but everybody knows,” said Lacaze. “Everybody is complicit.”

The Nordic style house in the outskirts of Ulaanbaatar stands out against its surroundings, and its inhabitants are also trying to adapt. This is a safe house run by the Swedish anti-trafficking NGO Talita. It is privately funded with only four beds available.

Gers, stained from pollution, by the road off of coal deposits in Ömnögovi province Credit: Meghan Davidson Ladly

Gaamaa occupies one of those beds. The tiny 22-year-old, in sweatpants and a t-shirt, looks like a university student relaxing between classes. She speaks softly. “If girls refuse to have sex, they abuse them and if they can’t change a girl, they sell her,” she said. “They call the trafficker and sell.”

Gaamaa has been bought and sold many times. In 2016, fleeing an abusive home, Gaamaa ended up at a sauna near the central railway station. There, in rooms with barred windows, she worked with four other women for a rate of 40,000 MNT for one hour and 60,000 MNT for two hours (roughly £11 and £17). Their madam supplied food and clothes, but never the money earned. The brothel sold her to another sauna when they found she was trying to escape, but not before she alleges being beaten as punishment and then raped by her attackers.

“Society think they [prostitutes] are garbage,” said Talita Mongolia founder and director Tserenchunt Byamba-Ochir. “There is no funding to protect victims, not one coin to protect victims of trafficking from the Mongolia government – they say we don’t have money for that.”

In 2017, the federal government cut funding to seven regional offices of Mongolia’s sole NGO designed to help sex workers – Perfect Ladies. Only three branches remain. Five women’s shelters operate, but four offer short term stays only. Talita’s Ulaanbaatar branch (the fifth shelter) is the sole long-term rehabilitation center for former prostitutes, and it is at capacity.

Eventually, Gaamaa was trafficked into China where she worked in multiple cities before a client helped her escape to the Mongolian embassy in Beijing. She arrived at Talita in late 2017.

Gaamaa used to shake as she talked about her experiences and she had nightmares. Now she wraps her arms around a stuffed bear and explains with a smile that she is looking into culinary college. But Gaamaa is also anxious about living in the capital, afraid that someone from her old life will recognise her.

Byamba-Ochir also has concerns. With many of the cases where Talita assists, the traffickers are not charged. Women feel intimidated and change their stories in court, or get pulled back into the trade. Gaamaa believes if she hadn’t been trafficked to China, she would still be a prostitute.

“Here in Mongolia they are not kind,” said Gaamaa. It’s really hard to escape here – it’s everywhere in Ulaanbaatar. It is very hard to escape Mongolia.”

Protect yourself and your family by learning more about Global Health Security

The Topic