School gives trafficked women lessons in hope

By Chayanit Poonyarat
September 28, 2002

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."

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