Prevention of Child Prostitution in Thailand, YOU CAN HELP!

Child prostitution is an international problem. It is especially a problem in Thailand in South East Asia. June spent three months volunteering at a non-government organization in North Thailand that works to prevent child prostitution among hill tribe girls in 1998. She is actively involved in presenting speeches about her experiences and about this horrible societal evil. "Children are not sexual objects, but the future for the human race. To abuse and exploit them is to endanger our own future as a species. Vile acts are often repeated generation after generation. If someone in your family or a friend is involved with incest, child pedophilias, or the molestation of children, PLEASE take action and contact your local authorities."

One such non government organization that works tirelessly to protect children from sexual exploitation is Daughter's Education Program, located in Mae Sai Thailand. I personally volunteered there, December through January 1997-98, and am impressed with their operation. I currently do public seminars, lectures and speeches regarding the problem of child prostitution free of charge to public audiences, private organizations, and churches. If you would like more information about Daughter's Educational Program and Development Center (DEPDC or DEP for short) (http://www.depdc.org) send a self addressed stamped envelope to my address with a request for "DEP info", and I will mail you a flyer about DEP, and my experiences there. 

DEP is in desperate need right now for financial contributions in order to take care of the girls it has rescued from child prostitution. It is well known through out Europe and Japan; but it has few American sponsors. I do not know the reason for this, perhaps lack of media exposure. At any rate, they can accept personal checks from American banks. If you would like to help, even it is just $5.00 or more, please consider making a donation to them. I can guarantee that they use the money to help these girls.

The girls at Daughter's Education Program Development Center live on site in bamboo huts, that are over run with huge rats. (I also experienced these "rats" when I lived on site in a bamboo hut. These rats are the size of cats).  These Thai hill tribe girls do not have any  money, and almost no school supplies. DEP provides the girls with a basic education, and life skills training (how to cook, clean for themselves). It is hoped that when the girls grow up, they can move back to their home villages and become teachers and help fight child prostitution on the community/ local level.

Brothel agents travel into the rural areas of North Thailand and look for virgins they can buy or "rent" from their parents. Often they tell lie and tell the parents  that their daughters will work in a Bangkok hotel or otherwise respectable job, while in reality, they will be selling their bodies, often several times every day to make the pimps money. Once the girls are enslaved, there is no escape. They are lucky if they are not beaten or killed. They see none of the "prostitute money" as the pimps keep it all, to make the girls pay off their keep. The pimps charge them for room and board and the initial money that was paid to their parents.

One young girl that I met had been locked in a room and forced to serve upward of ten men a day. She was only eight years old. After observing this problem in Thailand, and my association with Daughter's Education Program, I decided that I had to try to raise money to help DEP help these girls. If we each do something, at least some girls can be rescued. I believe they all can be rescued, but it can't happen without financial resources.

Please consider writing for more information and donating a little money to DEP; they sure need it, especially a program they have called the "leadership program". Daughter's Education Program's founder, administrator and current director is Sompop Jantraka. He was a musician and a bamboo flute maker who became concerned when he saw the condition his fellow country women and Thai children were living in, so he started DEP to help stop child prostitution at the community level, where it starts (as this is where the pimps "target" to find new, virgin flesh).

Note: As of January of 1999, I learned that DEP is no longer an exclusive agent at rescuing hill tribe girls from possible prostitution. While the majority of the girls at DEP are girls rescued from villages, I consider the work of DEP still closely related to the cause to which it originally was created to serve.

As of the present, DEP functions as a community center to help hill tribe children from all kinds of environments. I believe it is due to pressure from the Thai government that Sompop ceased his rescue of girls from child prostitution. It is currently being stated that child prostitution is no longer a problem in the Northern Thai region. Based on my research, I don't believe this. Daughters' Education Programme remains an important community center that educates children from hill tribe areas, including those rescued in the mid 1990s. Many of these girls have learned trades and go on to meaningful work in other parts of Thailand. DEP is now registered with the Thai Government. That is all I know at this time. However, I still strongly support the work they are doing, even if they are not actively rescuing girls. 

Sponsoring Daughter's Educational Program and Development Center (DEPDC)

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO HELP DEPDC: DEPDC is at organization with no religious affiliation which relies on grants and donations to continue its work. You can donate to DEPDC by:

• Sending a personal check or bank check in any major currency made out to DEPDC mailed to: Development and Education Progamme for Daughters and Communities Center , PO Box 10, Mae Sai, Chiang Rai, Thailand 57130 66 (53) 733 186 phone 66 (53) 642 415 fax machine.
• Visit Development and Education Progamme for Daughters and Communities Center on the Internet at http://www.depdc.org.
• Transferring money to: Siam Commercial Bank, Mae Sai, Chiang Rai, Thailand


Account name: DEP

Account Number: 636-2-06434-B

• If you do not want to mail checks internationally, you can mail them to me, BUT ONLY IF YOU MAKE THEM OUT TO DAUGHTER'S Education Programme Development Community Center; and I will mail them for you; with a request for a receipt for your records *which I will mail back to you when I get it…usually takes a few weeks for them to process these receipts. I send them Priority World (new fast shipping service from the US Postal Service). Some times when I give speeches about this center, people will send checks to me out of convenience and I mail these immediately on to Sompop, the founder and director of DEP (which I know personally since I volunteered at DEP). 

•    Raising money for DEPDC is an excellent way YOU and your church or service organization can help a community centered effort to help children.

     Money is needed desperately to pay for general things at DEP like food, clothing, and educational expenses of the DEPDC girls. They come from extremely poor hill tribe families, and cannot make money. They are not recognized as Thai citizens by the Thai government, because as they are part of the indigenous population, Hill Tribes, their birth is not registered with the government. The result is that their families are not allowed to own their own land, or work in jobs. That leaves little other opportunities to earn a living. This is one of the root causes for so many hill tribe girls to be recruited or sold into child prostitution. Girls as young as AGE 7 are used! Please consider writing for more information about the work DEPDC is doing, and consider presenting it to your church or service organizations as a potential fund raising cause. Please let me know if I can help you do this. I do not charge any money for my work or help in raising money for DEPDC. I want to see these girls have a brighter future, and the only way this is going to happen is through development, and development and education costs MONEY.

Above Left: A Thai girl working on her education instead of being sold into the sex industry.
Above Right: Bamboo huts and lodges on a river in Mae Sai, Thailand. Across the river on the right side is the country of Myanmar (formerly known as Burma).

Copyright © 2010 June Narber, All Rights Reserved.