You might not notice it at first--all the girls in the restaurant look like they might be the owner's daughters. That girl who is stocking groceries next to you might be just trying to make a little money after school. And those girls hanging out in front of the nightclubs and massage parlors, even if they are...well, you know...they couldn't possibly be hilltribe girls, because the hilltribes have strong villages, right? Aren't the hilltribes are firmly rooted in their traditional ways? Don't hilltribe families stay in the mountains protecting their children from the exploitation of the city? Look again. See their slumped shoulders, their sad eyes, the heavy way in which they carry themselves, the look of self-consciousness whenever they speak Thai? The low-end labor jobs of Chiang Rai, Chiang Mai and other northern Thai cities are filled almost exclusively by hilltribe youth struggling to make about $35 per month to help support their family. And while that Akha girl who just served you your fried rice is far from lucky, she at least, probably, is safe and has a choice to go home if she wants. And that makes her much luckier than the many hilltribe women and children who are exploited, trafficked and will never see home again.
Yes, in traditional hilltribe villages, we would not see youth being trafficked or exploited. But, as the Thai government forced these migratory people to become stationary and to farm one piece of fatigued land; as interactions with the material culture of the city became more frequent, turning relative poverty into actual poverty; and as the lack of education, vocational skills, ability to speak Thai, opportunities, Thai citizenship, knowledge and awareness of the dangers of leaving the village converged, the former safe haven of the mountains has become the source of endless stream of innocent people unprepared to cope with the unjust situations they are thrown into.
Sweatshops and prostitution are
the high-profile exploitation scenarios, but seemingly honest work can
become instantly become dangerous without the naive young people in the
middle having caught the subtle warning signs:
-- a young boy who has been loading and unloading trucks for ten hours
is asked by his boss to carry a package to another store, relieved only
to have a break from the heat and strenous work, it doesn't occur to him
that he is carrying narcotics;
--a fifteen-year-old girl waiting tables at midnight bar is too concerned
with following her boss's orders to notice that some of the customers
are becoming dangerously drunk.
Through a program of education about the risks of leaving one's community to work and projects to generate sustainable sources of income within the village, such as eco-tourism or making handicrafts and chilli paste, The Mirror Art Group is working to ensure that fewer hillitribe villagers in Mae Yao are forced to leave their community for work and those who do are prepared to do so.
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