The Story

In Asia, child prostitution has reached epidemic proportions. In Thailand, a country of 60 million people, relief agencies estimate that there are 2 million prostitutes - up to 80,000 of them are under the age of 16. Girls, as well as boys - some as young as eight years old - are being abducted by brothel agents and, in some cases, sold by parents into sexual slavery. The Save the Children Fund announced in October 2001 that more than 13 million children under the age of 15 have lost one or both parents to AIDS in the 20 years of the epidemic in South East Asia. Many Akha orphans end up in prostitution or living a squalid existence on the streets.

Agents scour the countryside to find children who can be bought or, if necessary, abducted. The majority of the children come from peasant families of the northern hill-tribes. The demand for younger children has grown so great the "procurers are competing to reserve girls and boys who will be raised, like livestock, to be sold into the brothels," according to a high-ranking official in the Thai police department. "They pay the parents in advance, with the son or daughter - often still a baby -- as collateral. Increasingly, pregnant women are selling their children into prostitution before they are born."

In many years of village development work, it has become apparent that boys in general are an under-served population in northern Thailand. New children's homes are geared towards younger women in need and tend to neglect boys in similar situations. More and more young men are entering prostitution for lack of other alternatives. Young boys, like young girls, are orphaned because of both parents dying to the AIDS virus. Thousands of girls and boys are abducted by brothel agents and, in some cases sold by relatives into sexual slavery. Many orphans end up in prostitution or live a squalid existence on the streets of Bangkok.