Word: mama
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...like many of the girls in Mae Sai, is from Kentung in Burma's eastern Shan state. Mama San is also from the Shan region and grew up with some of the girls' mothers. As a 20-year Mae Sai resident who graduated from working the brothels to owning one, she is regarded as a success and a valuable contact on the other, richer side of the border. It's a responsibility, she says. Her conscience won't let the two girls go for anything less than...
...Fifteen minutes later, facing an unknown future with just a pink plastic basket holding a few clothes and a bottle of shampoo, Lek starts to cry. Suddenly sensing a need to do everything properly, she runs into the bar, kneels in front of Mama San and begins to bow and chant, a good Buddhist girl in smudged makeup giving thanks for her freedom. Mama San laughs, flattered by the display of supplication. She isn't worried about finding replacements. "Their mothers or the middlemen bring them to me," she says. "There are always fresh ones...
...Mama San is right: there is no shortage of kids for sale. Across Asia, tens of thousands of children are peddled into slavery each year. Some toil with their families as bonded laborers on farms. Others are sold by their parents - or tricked by agents - into servitude as camel jockeys, fisher boys or beggars. In Burma, some are kidnapped by the state and forced to become soldiers. And, according to the International Labor Organization, at least 1 million children are prostitutes, with the greatest numbers in Thailand, India, Taiwan and the Philippines. It's a growing problem, fueled...
...already tried. On her second day, after instruction from Mama San on how to apply makeup and satisfy a client, a drunken Bangkok businessman beat her when she complained he was being too rough. She fled when she was released from the hospital. "I went to the temple," she says, pointing to the golden stupas on a hill high above the eastern outskirts of Mae Sai. "Mama San paid the police to come and arrest me. They held me there with only bread and water for three days. After that I was too afraid to run away. Mama San knows...
...want to be here," she murmurs. "Everyone's here because they have to be." Looking away, she starts quietly weeping. Without a good command of Thai or the right documents allowing her to return to her village in Burma, Pim has given up all hope of leaving. Besides, her Mama San insists Pim owes her $2,000, her purchase price. And how could she get money to pay? When asked if she wants to go home, she looks away at something far off in the distance. Staying, on the other hand, carries its own paralyzing fear. "My regular customers...