PHAN, Thailand—In one play, Thai children are lured by the prospect of making more money in Bangkok and are trafficked to the capital as child labourers.
In another script, a male teacher starts to molest a female student while conducting a physical exam on her. Her friends see what is happening, go tell the principal—and the teacher is fired.
These are but two of the plays staged by young volunteer actors with the Centre for Girls here in Phan district of Chiang Rai, the northernmost province of Thailand—performances that touch on real-life problems such as sexual exploitation, child labour, drug use and HIV/AIDS.
These are serious problems, but the community-based centre and its volunteers believe that the right information—sent in a child-friendly way—is the best way to arm children with an awareness of their rights.
Every weekend, the centre's three staffers and 15 actor-volunteers, aged 15 to 18, stage skits in the centre's modest little auditorium. Their use of creativity, humour, symbolism—amid reality—is a hit with the audience of children, some as young as five, judging from the peals of laughter coming from the centre's compound one nippy Saturday afternoon in November.
The subjects of the plays are not unfamiliar to Chiang Rai's communities, including the Phan district of 100,000 people, majority of whom are in agriculture.
Chiang Rai borders Burma and is not too far from the Golden Triangle, where illegal drugs come from, and movement from northern Thailand to the south by rural young women to work in brothels and karaoke bars there is a common route.
In fact, the centre's 28-year-old director, Natnaree Luangmoy, was herself drawn to community work after a personal encounter with the sex trade—a friend of hers, 18 at the time, was forced to go into the sex trade down in southern Thailand.
"She had to go because the agents had already paid her parents half of the money," she recalls of her friend, whose pleas not to be sent south went unheard.
Today, Natnaree says, she hears that her friend is married to a rich man. "Her husband asked her to get out of this kind of work," she explains. "But I think she is still among the lucky ones - many of them come back with money—and HIV/AIDS."
Natnaree has not forgotten this story, which got her to join a training course for child rights volunteers six years ago. The centre, formed in 1997 by Natnaree and 22 youth volunteers, is supported by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the Canadian and British embassies and individual donors.
Today, Natnaree looks after the centre's programmes that teach youngsters about their rights—and the skills to cope with real-life risky situations.
Kittiphan Kanjina, a 16-year-old student and actor-volunteer, says the scripts usually focus not on the problem itself but what children can do about it, for instance, talk to people they trust. "Many think that children should be passive but it should not be like that. If something happens, let others know."
The actors also use symbols and imagery apt for a young audience, rather than show actual acts of drug use or sexual abuse. In the introduction and conclusions, they may also remind the children not to imitate what they see.
"Some children don't even now they are being abused—and if they know, they do not know who to go to," Natnaree says. But awareness of society's dangers is one way of making them know they have rights to speak of, and can use, especially in Thailand where, according to a U.N. survey this year, only 39 percent of children were aware they had rights like adults do.
The Coalition against the Trafficking of Women says that most of the Thai girls trafficked to the south were between 12 and 16 years old, many of them from hilltribe communities. It says that "fewer" northern girls are being trafficked into the sex industry in recent years, but that they are being replaced by girls from Burma and southern China.
Natnaree says trafficking in her community was also eased by some state policies, like that which requires children to finish at least Grade 9, by which time they are around 15 years old. Now, there are also more scholarships and loans for needy children so they stay in school longer.
These are aimed at discouraging them from entering the sex trade or child labour in search of more money, whether to pay off debts or support the family, or because of the lure of a 'modern' lifestyle amid rising consumerism.
The emergence of the HIV/AIDS pandemic—Thailand's northern region remains the highest hit in the country—not only showed the price that young people and their families pay for being trafficked, but jolted many into trying to evade it. "People used to say that having AIDS is not as scary as poverty. They said, 'I'm not afraid of AIDS, but I'm more afraid of starvation'," Natnaree recalls.
Many parents agreed to have their daughters go south, and like Natnaree's friend, receive advance payment for their daughters' 'work'. "Go south" has become a euphemism for going to join the sex industry in Thailand's south, parts of which are known as hubs for the flesh trade.
"When they went into the business and came back with AIDS, that made the biggest difference (in awareness)," Natnaree adds.
Take the case of the daughter of Nu, who headed for the sex trade in Rayong at 14 to help her family, and died of AIDS a few years later. Today, Nu takes care of two grandsons with the help of the 1,000 baht (22.72 U.S. dollars) her son sends from Bangkok each month and a 200-baht (4.5 dollar) scholarship for the older boy, seven.
Asked if she thought prevention efforts geared toward children could have helped her daughter at the time, 54-year-old Nu stopped awhile to think. "I think if these efforts were here before, my daughter would not have had to die, children would not be orphans and there would be someone to help me and the family," she muses.
The Centre for Girls works with some of these orphans, either by getting them to attend the weekly plays or other activities, from camping to typing or guitar lessons.
Whatever the activity, youth involvement is key to prevention and awareness efforts. The centre also trains other child volunteers who pass the information on in their schools, get them into non-formal education and refer emergency and legal assistance to sexually abused children.
Twelve-year-old Sumintra of Pangkohsai primary school underwent training by the centre on child's rights. She says she learned various things—to avoid opening the door to strangers when alone at home, to avoid getting married under the age of 18, and if harassed or sexually abused, to tell people she is comfortable with.
