Love thy neighbour
From Griffith REVIEW Edition 22: MoneySexPower
© Copyright Griffith University & the author.
Written by Craig Scutt
Download the complete article PDF
Craig Scutt's biography and other articles by this writer
Thoughts lead on to purposes, purposes go forth in action, actions form habits, habits decide character, and character fixes our destiny.
– Tryon Edwards (1809-94)
Abang's eyes flash from side to side. He seems rattled, nervous, unsure. It's 8pm on a Saturday night and we're on the middle of an old grey bridge in Loi Kroh Road, Chiang Mai, the provincial capital of northern Thailand. He puts the bunch of withered red roses he has to sell on the pavement and leans back on the balustrade, badly affecting nonchalance. A colourful parade of Thais and farangs (foreigners) streams by. Everyone is out for a good time. The night bazaar, girly-bars and gay bars are filling up. Abang grits his teeth and scans the busy street. You'd think we were in the middle of a drug deal. Finally satisfied his friends aren't around, he cups his hands in front of his chest. My companion, Pot Rungrojkulporn, drops a fistful of condoms into the boy's open palms. Abang is eleven years old. He isn't scared, he is embarrassed.
I hadn't come to Thailand to hand out condoms to kids. Ostensibly I was here on business with my mother-in-law. When I found out we had a few days' R&R in Chiang Mai, I couldn't resist finding a story to cover. Writing about the sex industry in a nation dubbed ‘the world's brothel' may seem passé but I couldn't help myself. Perhaps there was an underlying element of titillation at play, but I like to think it was an innocent wave of curiosity that propelled me out of the sweltering midday sun into an internet café, sans coffee. Google brought me to Pot, a project officer for the Volunteer Children's Development Foundation (VGCD).
Ten years ago, four local university graduates noticed a growing number of street kids hanging around the city's medieval cultural landmark, Tapei Gate. They talked with them and realised the youngsters were being preyed on by opportunistic sex tourists. The graduates decided they could help, and VGCD was born. With limited financial support from UNICEF, the foundation exists to provide a place of refuge and support, as well as recreation and education services, for street children in Chiang Mai.
Every night for a decade, Pot and a small team of volunteers have scoured the main tourist areas seeking out children who are begging or selling flowers. They often find them in the sex bars, where they are most vulnerable to overtures from paedophiles. Pot carries a brightly illustrated book that he uses to show the kids how to spot sexual predators. There are pictures of men offering children sweets, taking them to the movies and making gifts of bicycles. Images of gift-giving lead to illustrations of men fondling or drooling over kids. The last page depicts a lonely street boy covered in sores after his immune system has been destroyed by HIV/AIDS, his soul floating away to symbolise death.
As I watched Pot showing the kids these pictures, I found it impossible to gauge from their responses whether or not they had engaged in prostitution. When we first met Abang, he was patrolling the streets with a friend. They laughed when Pot whipped out his book. Both insisted they were virgins and convincingly, as far as I could see, demonstrated an appropriate level of coyness. It was only later that Abang returned alone and whispered to Pot that he had been sleeping with male tourists.
Pot tells me around two hundred and fifty children currently use the VGCD's rundown headquarters as a place to hang out. The building's façade is like a shopfront except there's a gaping hole where the display window ought to be. Despite its dishevelled appearance, it is a happy place. The walls inside are covered with bright pictures painted by the kids. A huge blackboard is used by volunteer teachers to instruct classes about basic hygiene and health care, drugs, sexually transmitted infections and the dangers of prostitution. For street kids, the appeal is obvious. The headquarters is safer than the slums, and it must be reassuring to have someone take a genuine interest in their welfare.
With a population of 1.5 million, Chiang Mai is Thailand's second largest city. Under ousted former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was born here, the city benefited from five years of intensive investment. Most of the children who end up living rough come from remote rural villages in the country's far north, or across the border from Myanmar and Laos. The majority, like Abang, are sent here by their parents. It is debatable whether their uneducated parents, who have probably never set foot in Chiang Mai, understand the potential horrors awaiting their children. Pot says most of the kids arrive with the intention of becoming beggars or flower sellers, not prostitutes. The development foundation's core mission is to prevent them from entering the sex trade.