OTHER STORIES

• It's Gambling Time Again, but Locals Still in Poverty
• As Hordes of Tourists Come, Heritage Goes
• Villagers Count Costs of Dam in Vietnam
• Criss-crossing Lives
• Highways, Logs, Hydropower and the Remnants of War
• For China, Xiaowan Dam a Reservoir for Progress
• HIV/AIDS is Far and Near

This set of two articles paints a contrasting picture of two border areas that the nearly 1,500-kilometre East-West Corridor will traverse, as it links Vietnam on the South China Sea to Myanmar on the Andaman Sea, going across the Greater Mekong Subregion.

The first border area is in Mae Sot in Thailand and Mawlamywine in Myanmar, while the second area is in Savannakhet in Laos and Mukdahan in Thailand. — Eds.

Mae Sot (Thailand)-Mawlamyine (Myanmar)
A severely ill mother, with her two-year-old child, came to the Mae Tao health centre in September 2002. She was coughing painfully, and was found to be suffering from HIV/AIDS. She died at Mae Sot hospital two days after her admission, and her son, who is also with HIV/AIDS, was put under the care of the centre.

According to a woman who has close relations with the family, the boy's father left his mother about three months before he was born into a terrible life.

The health centre was set up with funds contributed by Karen who migrated to the Thai border town and local donors about a decade ago. In recent years, international non-government organisations have also provided financial contributions.

"This is by the Myanmar people for the Myanmar people, especially for migrants," says Ko Maung Maung Tin, a staff member of the centre.

A few patients there were suffering from malaria, including a 24-year old man who was taken there by his friends, but who later stopped visiting him. "We have many patients like him under our care," Ko Maung Maung Tin adds.

Patients are not only from inside the western Thai border town of Mae Sot, but also from Myawaddy, the town just across in Myanmar.

The centre has gradually grown with the needs of migrants from Myanmar, for whom it is essential. New wards are under construction in the two-acre compound.

A recent challenge for the Mao Tao clinic is greater involvement in the treatment of young women who have had abortions. "Abortion cases have become more common, as more young women are sexually abused," says Ko Maung Maung Tin. "What's more, HIV cases are widespread."

According to the international non-government group World Vision, which has been running an HIV/AIDS programme since the late 1990s, its sample surveys show that about 20 percent of sex workers in the town are HIV-positive.

Non-government workers in Mae Sai town, Chiang Rai province, where most women from Myanmar come across the border into Thailand, say that many women who come from Myanmar in search of better lives and end up in the sex industry pay a terrible price escaping poverty at home.

Myanmar prostitutes working in Thailand are defined as "illegal migrants" by Thai authorities. In an effort to control in-migration from neighbouring countries, especially Myanmar, whose Tachilek town lies just across the border crossing from Mae Sai, there are many checkpoints on the roads from the border.

Transporting foreign prostitutes around Thailand has therefore become difficult, as the women are relatively easy to identify. But the sex industry found an ideal solution to this problem: in many instances, the police escort the women.

In Mae Sot too, brothels and nightclubs are dominated by Myanmar girls. Migrants are mainly members of ethnic groups like the Mon, Shan and Wa. A number of Myanmar women are brought openly across the border into Mae Sot in pick-up trucks.

In these instances, an arrangement is made between the agent and local border police. If the agents wish to avoid involving officials in their business, they can easily take them across the border through jungle trails.

One observer says, though, that many Myanmar girls come to Thailand on their own accord to find better fortunes, which is why they cannot be considered trafficked. The majority of traffickers transport 'willing' women, he says.

Traffickers are usually native to the area, and most are women. They know the geography, the culture and the language because they have grown up in it. Many of these agents are also involved in other illegal activities, like drug and gem smuggling, and use the same trails and contacts to smuggle their human merchandise.

A 19-year-old Myanmar girl, working in a garment factory in Mae Sot, says: "Before I started to work here, I was brought to Myawaddy by a woman who previously knew my mother. For the first two days, we were put up stealthily in a small apartment built behind a two-storey house. The following day, while the woman was away, a middle-aged man entered my room … and told me I must have sex with him for the debt the woman owed him."

Most girls, from factory workers to sex workers, relate similar stories about how they came here. They say their families sent them to Thailand, or at least gave permission. In some cases, they were the ones who requested permission to leave home.

One factory worker says she wanted to leave home and take up a job in Mae Sot after she saw her neighbours becoming fairly affluent in a short time. They bought motorbikes, bicycles and renovated their houses.

She sought to have the same life - and was sold three times before she ended up working in Mae Sot. Now, she believes her life cannot be worse than what it has been.

The attractions of working in Thailand are obvious for young women from Myanmar. However, as a schoolteacher points out, these people are like fish that see the bait, but not the hook. To the poor and those who have lost faith in their country's future, the Thai border town is the promised land. For some who make it there, it does seems like that - but for many others it will be hell.

A Thai businessman explains that the issue of labour mobility—particularly between Thailand and Myanmar—would affect the development of the planned East-West Corridor that would stretch across from Mawlamyine in southern Myanmar to Da Nang in central Vietnam.

There are said to be more than 400,000 undocumented Myanmar labourers in Thailand (although some estimates put it at one million). Officially, Myanmar labourers are permitted to work in construction and in plantations, but not in industry, he says.

Savannakhet (Laos)-Mukdahan (Thailand)
"Border towns had less economic opportunities previously, but this has changed with the movement of goods and people increasingly escalating there," says Amephon, a lecturer at a teacher-training college in Savannakhet, a southern Lao town on the border with Thailand.

With the development of better transport facilities in the border areas, most local people have changed their old thinking of staying only around their native places, he says.

"It is tourism that encourages the scenario to develop more," Amephon explains. Today, tourists are visiting even remote and border areas, even though tourism is more common in the more developed metropolitan areas.

But an important change that comes with this is the mixing of culture and customs between the native people and their visitors, he explains. "It impairs to some extent the local culture," the lecturer says. "Unless the local communities take up proper measures to sustain their culture and social forms, these would be forgotten."

Savannakhet town, with a population of more than 670,000, lies on the eastern bank of the Mekong river, and stretches out to plains in the north and south and up to the Laos-Vietnam border in the east.

In connecting coastal Da Nang in Vietnam in the east to Mawlamyine, Myanmar to the west, the East-West Economic Corridor would pass through Savannakhet and the Thai town opposite its border, Mukdahan, which has a population of 330,000 and a literacy rate of 97 percent.

The twin border towns of Savannakhet and Mukdahan would be connected by the Second Thai-Lao Friendship Bridge across the Mekong river, which is expected to be completed in 2005.

The two towns also have another geographically favourable condition. There is a navigational project, initiated by China—and signed in 2000 by that country, Myanmar, Laos and Thailand—to make the river more navigable for commercial shipping from China going south. That is why the connection of the two towns—Savannakhet is along the Mekong river—would make it an important transitional point for the movement of goods and people in the east-west and north-south directions in the Mekong subregion.

"Given that, I believe Savannakhet is likely to be even more developed than the Lao capital Vientiane. And the Savannakhet area has been designated as a special economic zone," Amephon says.

In keeping with making the area an economic zone as transport links are increased, an immigration official adds that modern equipment would also be needed to screen people and goods that pass through. "Otherwise, it will be difficult for us to control illegal trafficking in this border point," says Police Lt Col Chusak Phanasumporn of Mukdahan immigration.

At present, Thai nationals need not get visas to go to the Lao side, but their Lao counterparts who cross the border need border passes. All other foreigners need visas to go to the Lao border town of Savannakhet.

Young Lao people, mostly women, come to the Thai side to work as general labourers, as well as waiters and waitresses.

Ravat Krailadsiri, general manager of a five-star hotel in Mukdahan, says that everybody is greatly interested in the development of the Friendship Bridge, as the area would be bustling with more trade that would in turn contribute to the prosperity of the people.

A Thai student in secondary school in Mukdahan says her family moved here a couple of years ago for her to pursue her education. "I want to be a doctor. After getting the degree, I hope to return to my native town, which is 50 kilometres to the west of Mukdahan, because I want to help the people there," she points out.

"I also want be proficient in two languages, English and Japanese, because I hope this area will be bustling with international travellers and traders in the near future upon the accomplishment of Mukdahan-Savannakhet bridge as well as the Corridor,'' she says.

Win Kyaw Oo wrote this article under the IPS/Rockefeller media fellowship 'Our Mekong: A Vision amid Globalisation'.