Mustering courage to battle injustice

Mustering courage to battle injustice

Bravery exists only because of cowardice. Standing up to those who are cruel and use weapons or sexual violence or financial power to oppress and intimidate — be they terrorists, human traffickers, dictators or common criminals — is hard.

This is because violence works: Bullets, bombs, rape and torture do silence people, leaving behind victims who are dead, scarred or otherwise intimidated. It is a truth we don’t like to tell ourselves, as we applaud the citizens of France for marching en masse to show they will not be cowed, but the injured and traumatised never fully recover and the dead never come back to life.

But even seemingly small acts of bravery can have resounding consequences, and one recent shining example of this came from a 15-year-old Lao girl.

The circumstances are depressingly familiar. The girl, a sister and a friend were given jobs as waitresses in a strip of karaoke bars in Suphan Buri, but within three days the girls had been forced into prostitution. There were four karaoke bars, connected at the rear to a series of small rooms used for sex, and each had between 10 and 20 Lao girls between 14 and 20 years old.

The 15-year-old girl raised the alarm on Dec 1, calling the Paveena Foundation hotline and saying she had been tricked into the sex trade. The courage she showed even in making that phone call should not be underestimated. The vast majority of child sex abuse victims do not speak out, for reasons that range from embarrassment to fear to the very fact that as children many do not fully understand that what is happening to them is a crime. Research has shown that children’s accounts of sexual abuse are treated with undue suspicion by adults, which only increases their reluctance to come forward.

The girl showed bravery not only in reaching out for help, but during the next six weeks as the Paveena Foundation and the Ministry of Social Development and Human Security gathered the evidence it needed. On Thursday morning, ministry officials and police swooped, raiding the four Suphan Buri clubs to rescue 72 girls and young women and charging the four owners with offering prostitution services.

Nobody could deny that extracting girls as young as 14 from such conditions is a good thing, and it took the bravery of one of the victims and the will of the rescuers to make it happen. But this one success only highlights how utterly Thailand has failed to look after vulnerable people, many of them trafficked from poorer neighbouring countries. The rescue was the exception, rather than the rule.

The scope and complexity of the human trafficking problem in Thailand and the region is daunting, with conservative estimates putting the number of victims in the tens of thousands. There can be no umbrella solutions either, since Cambodian labourers seeking a way across the border is a very different circumstance to Rohingya fleeing persecution in Myanmar, which is different again to those caught in the notorious fishing industry or forced into the sex trade. Successive governments have failed, for various reasons, and Thailand’s status and reputation has been downgraded as a result.

The new government has found itself in an invidious position, but is talking the talk about taking serious measures and establishing a clear chain of command. This newspaper has already said that the results will be based on actions, not just words, and called for the government to pursue those who exploit or profit from human trafficking. It is a point worth repeating: Platitudes and law changes will count for nothing until there is a concerted effort on the ground to right wrongs and treat victims compassionately.

Bravery can only take victims so far. They can call out and ask for help, but someone has to be there to listen and to act. Part of the duty of government is to stand ready to help those who cannot look after themselves. Society at large also has a part to play in standing up to such exploitation, although it is difficult given how complex the problems are.

In Suphan Buri, one desperate girl made a phone call and as a result she and 71 others were rescued. There are so many others who either suffer in silence or whose cries for help go unanswered.

A certain amount of bravery will be needed to start addressing these problems in any meaningful and long-lasting way. But to do nothing would be to give in to cowardice.

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