By Angie Sullivan | Cofounder, Project Leader
Poverty and illiteracy are proven vulnerabilities in the exploitation and trafficking of people, especially children. The service your generous donations provide ensure children are not only protected from being a victim but advocating for them when they have already experienced the trauma of exploitation and trafficking. Our goal is to prevent trafficking of children. Occasionally, a child enters into our after school and day camp program in need of protection from their predators.
It was a seemingly very long two months when the stepfather was arrested and charged with two years of sexual abuse. He admitted to sexual abuse and providing child pornography of an eight year old child. The mother became belligerent, threatening her own mother’s life and attempting to kidnap *Precious Gemstone. The grandmother informed the police of her daughter’s behavior and intention to kidnap her from school. The police were rescuing *Precious Gemstone from her classroom as the mother was storming the school’s administrative offices with threats demanding her daughter. *Precious Gemstone was ushered to an undisclosed safe haven shelter for long term care. The mother attempted to remove her mother’s report from the police to learn GRACE was the initial report. She then threatened our staff. All the while, we are praying and trusting God as our Provider, Protector and Strength. The stepfather was found guilty and sentenced to twenty years in prison. He was required to pay retribution of 1,500 baht to *Precious Gemstone (that’s equivalent to approximately $50 USD).
Due to this situation, our Director represented GRACE on the municipality committee of child protection, working alongside the authorities and other NGOs in establishing policies and procedures for reporting child abuse, exploitation and trafficking cases. Since August of 2018, GRACE is aware of twenty-one cases within our care in which children or their parents experienced exploitation or human trafficking situations. These situations are heavy. We have experienced the forced marriage of a fourteen year old, a twelve year old being trafficked into a brothel (a different brothel than where her twenty-five year old mother works), a set of teen siblings forced to work in agricultural fields, a young mother selling her infant to black market adoption agencies, a seven year old girl dancing at local bars in the evenings, others in debt servitude, boys placed into temples to serve as novice monks and beg for food and offerings, and a mother’s agony over her nineteen year old son disappearing from fishing boat labor. These do not include the numerous children living as orphaned children to a single father, grandparents, a guardian, or a slum community leader because their mother is ‘working overseas’ or ‘working in the city’ [in the sex industry]. These cases are of those we directly serve through GRACE in Thailand.
For these and those whom will need advocacy in the future, your generosity ensures hope through eradicating their vulnerabilities.
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