Human Faces

   IN the beach resort of Pattaya, Thailand, men arrive by the planeload to have sex with exotic others. These “others” are women and children, from impoverished rural communities or neighboring countries, who fall prey to traffickers. They are lured in by promises of a good job, education and a better life only to discover there is no bright future ahead of them, only desperate circumstances. Sex tourists tend to rationalize their actions because the women are not of their own socioeconomic and cultural milieus. “Why is it they are not seeing their own daughter or sister or cousin or mother or wife in those people,” asks Arlington-based photographer Kay Chernush, who has documented human trafficking since 2005.