SbaiDee All,
        Here is my contribution to the group.  Please feel free to comment
and suggest on anything.  I will post this in soc.culturel.laos on Wednesday.
        Vinya

Satjadham Presents:  The meaning of living
By Vinya Syamouth

Kham is a prostitute at the age of twelve.  She had just finished "por
hoak", sixth grade. Each night she had to sleep with Thai men and lots and
lots of farangs (foreigners).  Even though she is miserable with the job,
she is satisfied to know that part of her earnings will help her parents and
four other siblings back home.  Kham is one of many girls from the Northern
Thai villages that were sold to work on the streets of Patpong, Bangkok.  

Like many of the Northern Thai families, most parents cannot afford to send
their children beyond compulsory education.  Kham's parents are a debt
ridden rice farmers who can produce hardly enough rice to support the
family.  They really did not have much of a choice and had to do what so
many of the northern rural villagers are doing -- selling daughters into
prostitution.

The story of Kham is not unique of a rural Northern Thai girl.  Each year
thousands and thousands of children enter prostitution due to economic,
social, and political pressures.  The estimate of child prostitutes in
Thailand can be as high as 800,000 and is increasing. These children are
facing great danger.  Not only they sometimes are physically abused by men
twice their size, but they are in the position of catching and spreading the
deadly disease, AIDS.  Solutions are hard to find when there are so much
oppositions such as corruption's among police officers and lack of
sustainable income to the sexual exploited victim's family. 

During my junior year study abroad program at Chiangmai University,
Thailand I have encountered face to face with many of the families such as
Kham's.  Part of this encounter was due to the fact that I stayed at a
northern village at Phayao province as part of the program required field
work.  Little did I know that when I decided to do my research on the
"driving factors of girl prostitution" it was going to encompass a whole
range of issues.

It was sad to know that a lot of the children in the villages that I am
fond of will end up in prostitution within a couple of years.  Yet, at the
same time it was even sadder to realize how powerless a third year
undergraduate student like myself could do to help.

I discovered that the exploitation does not stop at the Northern Thai
villages.  It is spreading like wild fire to many remote areas of Southeast
Asia.  The girls are getting younger and more "exotic" as the belief  that
younger girls (as young as ten), especially virgins of "chao khow" (ethnic
minorities or highlanders) are less unlikely to carry AIDS.  The stories are
all the same; an "agent" is sent to a village to "trick" the parents with
cash and other remuneration such as a new pick-up truck in order to get the
girl to work in a "restaurant."  What is worse, sometimes agents drive
through villages, abducting young girls as they go.  In other cases, parents
become irresistible to the temptation, partly, due to the materialistic and
schizophrenic society, making them more willing to exchange their own flesh
and blood for a few thousand Baht.

Yes it is spreading fast my friend.  Young men and women from Isan and
other parts of Thailand are pouring into Bangkok each year, hoping to earn
quick bucks before the planting season begin.  Some, both men and women end
up selling themselves to tourists and Thai men in exchange for a few yens,
bahts, dollars, deutsche marks, etc. Girls from remote villages of Yunnan
Province, China, Sayaboury, Laos, the Shan States, Myanmar are lured in to
the capital of the "Land of Smile" as well.

The one year in Thailand has made me realized how lucky and fortunate I am
to have many opportunities and freedom.  I intend to use this freedom to
help others similar to Kham's family.  My intention after receiving my BS in
International Relations (May 12, 1996), is to continue with graduate study
in Southeast Asian Studies, emphasizing rural development. I believe with
the right strategies of rural development, this complicated problem can be
over come.  For me, one reason for living is to help others live.


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URL: http://www.uwm.edu./~vinny
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