Women trying to make a living at Yunding KTV, located inside Myanmar’s Jiaoke Smart City, are speaking out about severe abuse inside the venue. According to workers, a middle manager is actively trying to push out top-performing Chinese hostesses—targeting the best-looking and highest-earning girls—just to clear spots for her own crew of Vietnamese hostesses.
Working there has become a daily nightmare. The women say they walk on eggshells every shift, terrified that saying the wrong thing could trigger a massive fine. Rent and room fees are slapped on them whenever management feels like it, with no fixed rates or receipts. To make matters worse, the manager forces the hostesses to buy overpriced outfits directly from her, making it mandatory to dress in her preferred Vietnamese style every night.
If a worker is short on cash and cannot pay a fine, she is pressured to contact her family back home in China to wire money over. Until the fines are fully cleared, security will not even let them walk out through the gates of Jiaoke Smart City.
When the shifts end, the complex outside fills with the hum of motorbikes and steaming street food stalls, but for these young women who left home to earn an honest living, daily life is spent in constant fear. Several hostesses have already fallen into deep trouble and suffered serious financial losses here.
Now, workers in the region are urging any women looking for jobs abroad to stay far away from the trap at Yunding KTV. They are also appealing to the top owners of Yunding KTV to step in, stop letting one manager abuse her power, and launch an audit to see whose pockets those heavy fines are actually lining—so the hostesses working the floor no longer have to endure this kind of extortion.
