World AIDS Day
Four of the ninety sex workers who were rescued recently from human traffickers on Thailand’s border have reportedly died from complications associated with the AIDS virus. Eight others are known to be suffering from the disease, but this has not been verified, according to social workers based in southern Thailand who work closely with the Mon Buddhist monks.

“They are distraught after learning about their real situation and are very depressed,” said Ko Minn Paing, a social worker from social foundation. “Uncle, I want to call my parents in Burma and hear their voices,” one ethnic Mon said after learning she was going to die from the disease.

According to her statement, she blames the Thai human trafficker gangs who had sold her to a motel owner for contracting the disease. She spent most of the last year sleeping with motel customers where she contracted the disease. Later she returned home where she began to fell unwell after five months. She did not know until last week when she was rescued that she had contracted the HIV virus. Upon returning to Thailand the second time, she said the human smugglers didn’t care about her feeling unwell, but only separated her from the other young girls who were later sold to the motel owner at a high price to work as sex slaves.

“We negotiated with some people from the gang involved in the sex industry in Ranong and was able to free twenty-eight girls secretly,” said a Mon Buddhist to a Kaowao reporter. Most of young Mon girls working in the sex industry are from Mudon, Thanbyuzayat (Zobbu in Mon) and Ye township, Mon state. The girls say that their parents and the human traffickers who brought them over from the border into Thailand did not know that they had previously been in Thailand working in the sex industry. 

Two of the HIV victims are Mon girls from Karopi (Kroak Poay) and Taungpalu (Tongphalut) villages, Thanbyuzayt (Zopbyu) township, another is from Ye township who died while talking with the monk in the hospital. The organization arranged for the girls to be brought back to their area. However, they are too afraid to return home: “We feel very sick and know that we will not live long. We cannot eat and drink because there is too much pain. We feel bad uncle,” said a girl from Ye township to the Kaowao reporter. Some girls want to go home to their native villages, but would rather die in Thailand than go back to their family. They hope to receive medical treatment in Thailand. A Thai community organization in cooperation with members from the Mon community including Mon Buddhist monks saved the girls. They also arranged better jobs for the girls who decided not to go back to their village.