Getting started is always the hardest part of any piece of writing. After scrapping quite a few first drafts of my intro, I’ve decided to just tell you all the truth, which is that, up until recently, I had a pretty low opinion of blogs. They struck me as self-absorbed, waffly diatribes of people who believe their every thought is a stunning revelation about the meaning of life. Thanks, but I don’t want to hear about how trekking through Tibet helped you find your inner peace, or what you did from the moment you got up to the moment your inflated head hit the pillow. So I’ve steered clear of them, until a rather wise friend pointed out that, while some people may use blogs like this, more often they are used to serve a purpose akin to journalism, albeit perhaps less professional; they can be a valuable tool for broadcasting information. Now, whether that information is important enough to warrant attention is up to the reader; so I’d better let you decide by telling you how I ended up writing this first difficult paragraph….
So, I arrive in Bangkok just over a month ago, with the intention of finding work as an English teacher in Thailand for a few months before exploring Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, and doing some voluntary work here and there. After a week of Bangkok madness (and Bangkok belly but I’m sure you don’t want to hear the details), I get the night train up to Chiang Mai, known as Thailand’s cultural capital. Sadly it doesn’t seem to be its employment capital, as after a few days of cycling the streets looking ridiculous in my formal interview gear, it becomes obvious that teaching jobs are thin on the ground. Shame on you, misleading websites assuring teaching jobs galore! To distract myself from the potential failure of my plan I try and make at least some of it happen, and start looking for volunteer work. I hit upon an organisation based just outside Chiang Mai; the Children’s Organisation of Southeast Asia (COSA), which works to prevent child sex trafficking. Score! This is just the kind of work I’m interested in. I’ll be able to get some good experience volunteering for them a couple of times a week, even if it’s only a short while before I’m forced to return home penniless.
However, when I get to the shelter, it's even better than expected. Mickey offers me a volunteering position working as a liaison between COSA and a well-known Australian organisation they work with, and will get to live and eat at the shelter for free. My job will involve writing reports on the children we take in, dealing with sponsoring, and documenting how we spend our funding. Because of the strong community-based nature of the organisation, it will also involve a lot of fieldwork, going up to interview hilltribe families in the surrounding area and gathering information on those who are at risk of being trafficked. In other words, the most amazing job I can possibly think of doing here. Needless to say, I accept without trying to hyperventilate with excitement, and just over a week later I’m installed at the shelter they run on the outskirts of Mae-Rim, a small town half an hour’s drive from Chiang Mai.
So there you have it. I’ve been here at COSA for three weeks now, and have learned a lot already: so much, in fact, that it’s impossible to just keep it to myself. My own assumptions about trafficking, which I know are shared by many, have been challenged and overturned in a mere month. Myth buster number one:
Nine times out of ten, it is families who sell their children to traffickers and brothels. Contrary to what you may have expected, it is not because they are starving to death and sacrificing one child so that the others can live. Instead, many (though by no means all) do it to acquire material goods like televisions or a car, in order to ‘make face’ (earn respect) within their village. In an impoverished community like that of the hilltribes, material wealth often comes to matter more than the wellbeing of an individual.
