Just with a little girl that's 6 years old, the man next door sexually abused her.
He's been doing it to all kinds of kids in the neighborhood.
Then you go to the families and give them money so they wouldn't talk.
This little girl's mother said that's wrong, I'm not going to give you money.
They got iJam involved, put the guy away, he's in jail currently.
I found out that he only got a five year sentence.
He should probably be putting away for life, but it's a good start.
I have a granddaughter 6 years old, so that's what's going through my mind.
I feel so blessed in Canada because it's a safe country and we have systems to look after
each other when we get in trouble.
I've got nine granddaughters, and it breaks my heart when I hear about what happens to
little girls in third world countries.
I can't imagine one of my granddaughters being taken by a loved one snatched away with fake
promises of a better life in the big city because they live in the hill drives, and that night
they're involved in the sex trade.
I just can't imagine that.
This has got to stop, so I've got to do something.
And the best thing I can do is host a fundraiser and raise money.
I want to see what IGM is doing on the ground in Thailand.
The first place we went to was the IGM offices, and that was really good because we got an
overview of the work that IGM does.
IGM focuses on two main areas here in Thailand.
One area is abuse issues, mainly sexual assault and often involving children, and the other
issue is Thai people not having citizenship.
We drove four hours out of Chiang Mai up into what is called the hills, where the hill tribes
live.
And there's 400,000 people who live in village settings, and they don't have Thai citizenship.
So they're treated like third class persons, like lepers.
Well, first of all, if you don't have your citizenship, you're like a prisoner, and you
can only stay in your village.
You can't travel anywhere.
If you go to get a job, you're probably not going to get hired, and if you do get hired,
you're going to get paid less than everybody else.
Coming from Canada, I mean, we just take it for granted completely.
We're born into freedom.
We're born into privilege.
We're born into education.
We're born into healthcare, and these people are not.
They're born into corruption.
One young woman, 26 years old, told her story.
She wants to live into everything she was created to be, and she can't, and her frustration
was palpable.
You could taste it.
She cried as she told her story.
It wasn't tears of self pity.
They were tears of frustration because she is absolutely helpless.
She is powerless because she does not have Thai citizenship.
So for IJM to come in and give hope is so profound.
Just opposed with that was a 22-year-old woman who has been given that hope by IJM, who's
had citizenship for two years, and the joy next to that frustration.
Here we have joy just exuding from her, and it was so beautiful to see that hope and just
filled with life.
The IJM goes in, and they become these people's advocates, not only is IJM building relationships
with the villagers, they're building relationships with the key people in the government, and
that is really, really working because the government knows they're not going away, they're
not going to give up, they're relentless.
I guess we better work with them instead of trying to fight them.
I believe there's 400,000 people that don't have Thai citizenship, and so far IJM has
got close to 14,000 registered.
These are real people.
It's a real life situation, it's not something you read about in a book.
Little girl is gorgeous, and she's so young, and she's so innocent, and I have huge respect
for the toughness of her mother, because the people next door are criticizing and bullying
and making fun of them, saying, you put my dad away.
So this family is going to have to move, they need to change communities.
They don't have their citizenship, I just found that out.
So I asked if the place they're living and whether they own that land, and I was told
they don't, because they're not citizens, they can't buy land, so somebody else bought
it for them under the other person's name, so they will sell it and then completely relocate
to another community.
I mean, big enough price having that happen to your daughter, but to then think you've
got to change your whole life.
I was just overwhelmed by the depravity of human beings, right, what we're capable of,
but juxtaposed with that is the goodness, the good that's possible in us when we have
a motivation that's greater than ourselves.
To get this work done, it takes money.
We can hire a lawyer for $20,000 a year, that's like a fifth of what it would cost in North
America.
I like the fact that IJM's goal is to work themselves out of a job, we're not just continuing
to be throwing money at it, we're fixing systems that are broken.
I'm involved with IJM because I believe they're the gold standard in the world doing this
kind of work, because the work of IJM is for the betterment of humankind, and you don't
have to be religious, you just have to have a good heart and feel that we can make a difference.
