The Kids
The children that live and work on the streets around the tourist area are vulnerable to many dangers. The major negative effects are: risk of HIV/AIDS, sexual diseases, drug use, selling drugs, skin diseases, psychological problems, child prostitution, sexual abuse, risk of arrest by police, physical body weakness, commercial exploitation, joining gangs and street fighting.
There are around 300 known street children and youths that live and work around the tourist area in Chiang Mai and many more in other parts of the city. The majority of street kids in the tourist area are from the Akha ethnic hill tribe, and a large proportion of these kids are from Myanmar. Many children come to Thailand with their families who are fleeing conflict, abuse and extreme poverty in Myanmar. Some are also trafficked across the boarder or become trafficked within Thailand for the commercial sex trade.
Although there are many factors that perpetuate the condition of the street children that live and work around the tourist area, some important factors include:
- Selling flowers and sexual favours is seen as a quick way to earn money. ‘Large’ sums of money are offered to children for sex. There are big profit incentives for all those involved (including parents, agents and kids) in the sex trade to keep kids working.
- Thailand is a popular sex tourist destination. There is a great demand for children for sex by foreign men. Pre-pubescent boys and girls are sought after by paedophiles, situational offenders experiment with child sex, and men afraid of contracting HIV/AIDS want increasingly younger girls as they falsely believe children are a safe option.
- Children are the main bread winners in the family therefore, parents are unsupportive of child development activities that cut into a child’s work time.
- In the tourist area over 50 percent of parents or step parents of street children are on drugs. The children are made to work to support their parents’ drug habit. Sometimes they are sold by the parents to buy drugs.
- Mainstream Thai society is prejudice against the ethnic hill tribe people as they have no nationality therefore, there are limited opportunities for these people.
- Many hill tribe street kids do not have identity cards. So even if they do go to school, they do not get a certification at the end of their education. Consequently they have to do low paid jobs that exploit them further.
- The lack of public awareness on the plight of street children also makes many people indifferent to the situation faced by these children.
- There is a lack of information about how to report child sex offenders.
- People from many sections of society that profit from these children work hard to keep them trapped in the sex trade.
- Some older kids that are lured into a materialistic or drug culture enter the sex trade to support their life style.
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The child sex trade is a lucrative industry that will not be easily wiped out. Wealth discrepancies will always pose a risk of exploitation to poor children. However, through community motivation to take action and not accept the current norms, we can work towards one day achieving a safer environment for all children, and prevent innocent childhoods from being stolen.
