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School gives trafficked women lessons in
hope
By Chayanit Poonyarat
KOH KRED ISLAND, Thailand - At a school on this
island north of Bangkok, around 250 girls and women are
busy taking English-language lessons and other courses
to prepare them for the new lives they will lead once
they leave its premises.
But Baan Kredtrakarn
(Koh Kred Island's "Beautiful Home") in Nonthaburi
province, some 20 kilometers north of the Thai capital,
is no ordinary school. It is a protection and
occupational development center for girls and women
trafficked from various parts of Southeast Asia.
The school has been a rehabilitation center for
sexually abused and exploited Thai women for 42 years.
Since 1999, the school, run by the Ministry of Labor and
Social Welfare, has taken on young women trafficked to
work as beggars, cheap laborers, or sex workers into the
country from neighboring Myanmar, Vietnam, Laos and
Yunnan province, southwestern China.
"I like
this place and I learn a lot here," said Dara (not her
real name), a 22-year-old Myanmese woman, who has been
at the center for seven months. But it was only about a
year ago, she recalls, that she spent 14 hours a day,
seven days a week, working without pay in a ballpen
factory in a Bangkok suburb.
Dara said she and
her friends were trafficked from Myanmar into Thailand
through Mae Sai in Chiang Rai province, 830km north of
Bangkok, the common entry point for majority of Myanmese
trafficked into the country.
"It was my own
decision to come and work in Bangkok as the broker
promised I would get very good pay," said Dara. Her
family had to pay the broker 10,000 kyat (US$1,500) to
find Dara work in Bangkok.
Thirteen-year-old Nam
(not her real name) was seven when she was trafficked to
Poipet in Cambodia from her home in Hanoi before
arriving in Pattaya, a popular seaside tourist
attraction 147km southeast of Bangkok.
"I was
selling chewing gum on the street [in Pattaya] when the
police arrested me, and I never saw my mother again,"
recalled Nam.
"Begging has become a way of
living for some Cambodian families. They [Cambodian
girls] are among the youngest at the center, starting
from about five years old," said social worker Monthip
Kijyingsophon.
Some 500-1,000 Cambodian children
are now working as beggars in Thailand, according to
figures of the International Labor Organization's
International Program on the Elimination of Child Labor
(ILO-IPEC). Likewise, "we found some Cambodian young
girls keep coming back to the center after returning
home", said Monthip.
Dara's and Nam's stories
are not uncommon at the center, where many women have
arrived after being rescued from violent or exploitative
situations following police raids on illegal
establishments. Others walk into the center looking for
help, mostly to escape difficult living conditions. Some
Thai girls are brought in by their parents who fear, for
a variety of reasons, that they could fall prey to
sexual exploitation, teachers at the school said.
As victims of physical and sexual violence, many
trafficked girls arrive traumatized by what are often
slave-like experiences, and are in need of psychological
counseling and vocational training to help them cope and
reintegrate into society.
"Though there are less
newcomers at the center this year, compared with the
year before, we all know that trafficking and
exploitation has been on the increase," Monthip said.
With growing rates of poverty and illiteracy providing
the backdrop for the trade in trafficking women, it is
becoming increasingly difficult to help these girls, she
said.
Monthip said that the idea of working in a
big capital such as Bangkok and escaping life in their
villages, where the prospects for work are bleak, proves
attractive for many girls who take the risk and place
themselves in the hands of traffickers every year. Tens
of thousands of women trafficked each year into and out
of Thailand, a magnet for migrants and trafficked people
in the region. ILO-IPEC estimates that 80,000 women and
children have been trafficked into Thailand as part of
the sex trade since 1990, the highest number coming from
Myanmar, followed by China's Yunnan province and Laos.
"Trafficking is not a problem of morality. It is
a problem of rights of a person as human," said Jean
D'Cunha of the United Nations Development Fund for Women
(UNIFEM) regional program on gender, globalization and
markets.
However, there are some misperceptions
about how to solve the problem, said D'Cunha: "Many
governments tend to implement restrictions on women's
movement rather than working on prevention and
empowerment of women."
Apart from providing the
girls with accommodation, the center gives them legal
assistance as well as non-formal education in beauty
salon work, sewing and traditional massage, as well
English-language lessons and computer skills. Baan
Kredtrakarn also works closely with nearby schools,
offering classes where youngsters are told about the
risks of trafficking and exploitation. Girls from the
center share their experiences with the young audiences,
said Monthip.
The administrators at Baan
Kredtrakarn collaborate with non-governmental
organizations in the Mekong countries to check on them
and to monitor their reintegration. After that, a
follow-up program every three, six, and 12 months keeps
track to make sure they do not return to a vicious cycle
of need and exploitation.
"We are trying to
encourage the neighboring countries to establish similar
schools so more girls and women will be helped and
prevented from getting into trafficking," said Monthip.
After spending eight months at the center
learning about beauty-salon work, Nam looks forward to
returning to Poipet where her mother now lives. "I am
very happy and excited to see my mom again," said Nam.
As for Dara, with the center's help she finally
got the 10,431 baht ($241) salary owed to her by the
factory she worked in, and is preparing to return home.
"We are only waiting for the Thai-Burmese border
to be reopened and I am heading home," she said. "I
think I can earn my living from what I learned in sewing
class. I will also teach my mom how to sew," she
explained. Added Dara: "Though I like this center very
much, I don't think I want to come back here ever
again."
(Inter Press Service)
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