When I think back on the first in my life, whether it was my first memory or my first
kiss or my first date, I think a lot of firsts stick with us.
Some will leave us wounded and others will cherish forever, whether it's starting a
business or getting on the field for the first time, I realize that all of these
firsts contribute to who I am today.
But what breaks my heart is that some firsts are taken from us.
I told them that I would like to work with them, I would like to work with them,
I would like to get good money, but I have to make a little money.
I told them that if I work with them for the first time, if it's not the best,
then it's about 30,000 dollars.
Prostitution is not a choice.
The girls wear buttons with numbers on them, the customers don't even have to know their names.
They pick them like an entree off a menu.
Many of the girls who are working in those bars are underage.
There are girls as young as 13 or 14.
I would say 90% of them come from the northeast.
Most of their families don't own property, they work the rice fields, they are the countries poor.
The largest age bracket of a sex worker is between 15 and 29.
Meaning that most women you see in the red light districts of Thailand today
started this work when they were only a child.
The country outlawed prostitution almost 55 years ago,
but Thailand has gained a reputation as the Disneyland for pedophiles.
And because of this, it attracts so many Westerners that seek out a demand for underage girls.
And there is a certain demand for young virgins within the country as well.
5 years ago, we were there filming our documentary.
The hope for the documentary was really to put faces to the statistics of child prostitution.
And in that process, we not only learned how rampant this issue is
and how vulnerable children are in the country,
but also how vulnerable children are in the country.
But we also started to see the hope that existed in prevention.
My name is Thawee Donchai.
Half of the teenage girl in my village
they all drop off school and then go to Bangkok to work.
We don't know exactly what they do,
but they will be gone for a year or two and then they come back.
We find out later that all those girls, they go to Bangkok
and they have to be prostituted.
It was when we were filming in the north of Thailand that we met Kat,
a thriving, beautiful young girl very at risk of being trafficked.
And we began to identify the same risk factors in Kat that we had seen
and so many of the girls and children that we had met in Thailand's red light districts.
And we realized that the key to prevention was first and foremost education.
And that was because education isn't free in Thailand.
While it's required, the costs on it are very high and Kat's mother, a single mom,
couldn't afford to pay for Kat's education and was looking for alternative ways
in which to be able to make income.
And one of those ways was going back to Bangkok and working as a prostitute
and bringing Kat with her.
And so we want to give to them the amount that she needs to stay in school.
Starting now and until college.
So we're going to set up a scholarship through her teacher to keep her in school
and hopefully to send her on to college.
One of the main reasons that children end up going to the city
is to try and find a job is because there's a deep expectation
for them to provide for their parents.
So oftentimes we'll see children drop out of school between grade six or grade nine
because they need to support their families.
And yet finding a job without an education is nearly impossible.
And oftentimes this leads to children ending up in situations of exploitation.
So we're going to set up a scholarship through Kat's mother.
My name is Ren.
I'm a second-year student.
I like learning Thai, Chinese, English, and other languages.
I grew up in Pune.
I think I was able to find a job.
I think I found a job.
For example, going back to my hometown,
staying at home, washing dishes,
and having a good time.
I don't know what to bring with me.
If I want to bring a child, I can start taking medicine.
But if I want to take medicine, I can go back to my hometown.
My father didn't say anything.
He just kept his clothes and went back to his hometown
because my father was actually in Chiang Lai,
in Amphotung, Paneet.
And now he's stopped moving and everything.
He's been working as a bus driver for the temple.
He's also been working as a construction worker in Bangkok.
He's been working as a construction worker for the temple.
But I think it's true.
He says that he's asked me to go work at a construction worker.
He ordered me to plan a work.
And I found great money here.
But I needed to pay some cash.
I don't feel anything at first, but after a while, I feel that it's not going to be a good thing.
Because I don't want to thank that person.
Maybe I will invite my sister to do it, because my sister is not yet born.
Maybe my sister will invite me or my friends to do it.
I feel sorry for her.
When I went out with her, she told me that she would know what I'm doing now.
Because I was like that before.
It was like I was taking my sister's picture with me.
At first, I thought that she didn't think about it.
Then she knew that she would think that she would take me to visit this place.
She told me that she didn't want to do it because it was too loud.
When I was in the project, she told me that it wasn't going to be a good thing.
So I thought about it.
Five years ago, when I met with the fame crew called The Soul Project.
After working with them during the production of the documentary,
the same documentary inspired people to react and want to do something with the issue of human trafficking.
First, we started to provide a scholarship.
Shortly after that, we realized that we needed a safe place for them to be.
After the school or during the weekend where their parents have to work.
So this is a place where they can come and they can learn something.
Let English and art give them the vision of what is going to be their future.
Education and all the things that we offer is to make sure that they will make the right decision on their own.
So Resource Center is the place where we make sure they know exactly what they are going to see in the city, in the future.
What kind of decision or awareness they need to know and to make sure that they won't fall into the bad part.
Be able to say no and to save themselves and also save their friends and family.
So five years ago we asked the urgent question of does prevention even work?
And we knew that we were up against a lot.
Not only are we working within a country that has a thriving sex tourism industry,
but the dropout rates amongst our students were extremely high.
In the last five years we've seen those dropout rates go from 50% down to under 10%.
So prevention is obviously extremely hard to quantify.
We'll never know how many of the students that we work with would have gone into the sex trade had it not been for our prevention programs.
And that for us is the point that we never see the children that we invest in and we mentor and we offer scholarships to go into the sex trade.
I'd like to say that if we want this to happen alone,
and if we want it to happen, then don't hate people, don't hate the environment.
And I think that if we don't live like this,
then if we live like this, then we won't be proud of what we've been through and what we've been through.
That's all for today. I'll see you in the next video.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
