By Kyaw Taung

It is the title which I have chosen according to my personal experience not my imagination. They are the same age, the same race, the same original country and the cases happened in Bangkok, Thailand.

First two 14 year old Karen girls

I accepted a letter unexpectedly form Bangkok Female Prison in December, 2009. It was not addressed to me by name, but the person who transferred the letter to me thought I could help. In the letter, the prisoners needed help and the Thai house owner accused them of stealing a watch and they were arrested and put in prison.

After discussing with the Muslim man who brought me the letter, we decided to visit to the prison the following day. I felt sad when we met them because they were very young.

I did not know how to express my feelings as those two girls cried and showed respect to us as soon as we had introduced ourselves in Burmese and asked, “Did you write a letter to me?” After talking for a few minutes, we soothed them and asked them to slowly explain the accusations.

In briefly, both of them came from the same village, Karen state. They came to Bangkok with the help of a broker and worked at a home as house keepers for over 5 months. Although they used to work over 20 hours per day, they did not get any salary. Therefore, they said to the house owner that they did not want to work anymore. The employer placed a watch into their backpacks and accused them of stealing. He called the local police to arrest them and imprison them for a one and half years sentence.

During the time of the hearing of the case, the children did not have the opportunity to get a translator, and moreover they were not given the chance to have a defense attorney. They were put in prison without justice.

The children had been in prison for three months when we met. I had asked several NGOs to help them under the title of Women and Child. The NGOs workers said that they could plead for consideration in one and half months after the decision had been made. But now that the decision has been made three months ago, they cannot appeal.

My friend and I gave them 2000 Baht. They said that they had not enough food in prison. Although I got their parents contact phone numbers, when we visited the prison a second time, I could not contact their parents. I had given them my address and envelops in case they had the desire to send a letter to me. But they have not contacted me, and so I do not know the condition of their latest situation.

The third 14 year old Karen girl

A Karen woman made a call to me on the 12 of March, 2011. She said that her younger sister’s daughter was taken away by a Thai woman broker to work as a house keeper in Thailand 6 months ago. At the moment, she could not contact her. And when she asked the broker where her niece was, the broker answered that she did not know.

I wanted the broker’s photo, therefore I suggested to the Karen woman to contact the Thai broker and make an appointment to meet her at Bannar Mall to tell her that there were three girls who wanted a job and to help in seeking a job for them. I got the chance to take photos of her from a short distance.

I gave the information of the lost child, her photo and the broker’s photo to Child Foundations and NGOs that were anti-trafficking organizations. However, it made no difference.

The last unfortunate 14 year old Karen girl who I have met

The Burmese Association of Thailand (BAT) helped in arresting 45 enslaved Burmese Migrant workers including 3 supervisors from four locked domestic sewing industries, which had a lot of rooms and was situated in proximity to downtown Bangkok, on April 19, 2011.

(P.S. Formerly, we announced and pressed that 39 people were saved but after final investigating and collecting careful statistics we got the accurate number). According to the workers’ statement, they were sent to three places, two rescue camps and Khawng Pain Jail.

While I was wandering place to place, investigating and interpreting the information for that news, I heard a terrible and heartbreaking story about a 14 year old Karen girl.

The information was not given by the victim, but it was given by some of her friends who lived closely with her and were saved by us. They told me about the poor girl’s horrible story.

The poor girl most likely to asked a NGO worker or an interpreter, whenever she arrived, “Woooooo…. Teacher….. Take me to my home… I want to go back…. When will you send me back?”

The interpreter replied that they would send her. And whenever the interpreter asked that what was her name? Where was her village? What are her parents’ names? The poor girl replied that she knew nothing and always ran away.

I heard that she had been there for over a year. She had an older sister and when she worked together with her sister, she was out alone after they got into an argument. She met a group of Thai motorbike gangsters and was raped for two days by them. After escaping from that place, she met two motorbike riders on the way and she was raped again there. Finally, she lost control and walked around aimlessly, and the Thai police arrested her.

The first two 14 year old Karen girls will be free after their sentence, but nobody can know where they will be sent to after their sentence.

I hope that the third 14 year old Karen girl may be discovered by an organization.

The last 14 year old Karen girl was raped so frequently and brutally by groups of gangsters, that she cannot remember even her village or her parents’ names. She has faced such terrible circumstances that she become mentally unhinged and has lost control. The only hope is that she speaks Karen fluently, although she doesn't speak Burmese.

Conclusion

During last 30 years, Burmese girls were sold into being house keepers, prostitutes and house wives in both Thailand and China. I can do nothing about it and it is beyond my control. As an ordinary man I can do nothing about it, nothing for the prospective house keepers, prostitutes and house wives. The above facts that have happened, happened recently. We could help them because the crimes can be proven if we get a chance and have compiled enough evidence.

I have enough evidence to show that firstly, the place where the first two girls who did not get wages for six months were put in prison when accused of stealing a watch secondly, I can show the photos of the Thai broker who sold a girl whose whereabouts nobody knows, and lastly, I can show the girl who has been brutally raped and does not even recognize her parents’ names. I can show where all of them are.

I am looking for an organization that can help these children effectively. I will show all of my collected things, data, letters, photos and video files. I will help to the best of my abilities. I feel immense sorrow and when I think of them and how other Burmese children suffer from similarly terrible circumstances.

Daw Aung San Su Kyi’s she said recently, with a dizzying array of names, that Legal Aid organizations, Watch organizations, Anti trafficking organizations, Migrant organizations, empowerment organizations, Women and children organizations and including the biggest organization, the UN are mostly too busy and working with a lot of papers in conference rooms in big hotels. There is no doubt that they do not work practically in reality and there is no progress in reality.

Those kinds of people are oil on the water. I hope they will be annoyed if I say that it is a routine, they tend to read news on websites and they try to get resources from the internet such as collecting data, doing interviews, making documentaries and writing reports, and finally, they make a news article from those resources. So called citizen journalists and bloggers tend to desperately collect news and photos from the internet.

They focus on seeking out news on the internet instead of going out into the field and finding information on their own. If they would get to act on what they learned, I hope it will improve the situation.  But mostly, they are just boasting their so-called knowledge in big conferences. There have even been murder cases that go unreported and uninvestigated due to bribery.

Thai police have arrested and robbed documented migrants with passports. Although they would report this, NGOs would eradicate the evidence. There is no protection for Burmese migrant workers who are working in Thailand, and their lives are miserable.

May there be safe work and living conditions for Burmese workers in Burma. May Burmese workers be completely free from being slaves by sacrificing their lives in Thailand.