To the listserv community:

I've come across two stories -- both addressing the issue of human
dignity -- I'm passing on to you.

1) At 9 p.m. on Sunday Dec. 5th, CNN will air a documentary looking at
the lives of millions of children
in Africa orphaned by AIDS. Many of you may remember Sarah Stewart, Miami
graduate who landed the
Goldman Fellowship last year to go to Africa and address strategies for
AIDS education. This program
will give you a good idea of the problem which drew Sarah to that
continent. I've heard from several of you
an interest in studying or working in Africa. I'd urge to check this one
out.

2) Last month I started working for a wire service based in Geneva,
Switzerland. Earlier this week ENI
released this story about the prostitution trade in Thailand. I thought
you might find this interesting.


> >Churches try to save those at risk in Thailand's seaside 'tourist'
> centre
> >ENI-99-0451
> >
> >By Anto Akkara
> >Pattaya, Thailand, 25 November (ENI)--Thailand's tiny Christian
> >community is at the forefront of a campaign against a thriving
> >prostitution industry in Pattaya, a seaside tourist centre, 150
> >kilometres south of Bangkok.
> >
> >The (Protestant) Church of Christ in Thailand (CCT) and the
> >Roman Catholic Church are running institutions in Pattaya to help
> >prostitutes to leave their trade. (Thailand, with a total
> >population of 63 million, has about 200 000 Christians.) The
> >institutions also try to prevent vulnerable children from falling
> >into prostitution.
> >
> >"In Pattaya everybody sells bodies. Nobody is shy of it," said
> >Piangta Chumnoi, a Presbyterian who runs the CCT's Pattaya
> >Project.
> >
> >Most of the 18 children aged from 3 to 15 years who are housed
> >in Chumnoi's centre in Pattaya are the offspring of prostitutes,
> >male as well as female. Many of them have been abandoned by their
> >parents.
> >
> >The Fountain of Life centres run by Catholic Good Shepherd
> >Sisters, and orphanages run by the Redemptorist Fathers also play
> >a key role in Christian efforts to halt the booming sex trade
> >which flourishes in the hotels along Pattaya's beach.
> >
> >Chumnoi told ENI: "Pattaya is special. There is prostitution in
> >Bangkok and Chiang Mai [north of Bangkok]. But here [in
> >Pattaya]," she stressed, "tourism means only sex tourism. How
> >many women tourists do you find here?"
> >
> >Although over a quarter of the eight million foreign tourists
> >who visit Thailand each year go to Pattaya, the number of women
> >tourists in Pattaya is "very nominal", according to a local
> >travel agent who spoke to ENI on condition of anonymity.
> >
> >Though the exact figure of those involved in the sex tourism
> >trade in Pattaya is not available, the travel agent told ENI in
> >an interview in her office near south Pattaya beach that nearly
> >half of Pattaya's population of 200 000 were not locals but
> >"outsiders" involved in sex tourism.
> >
> >The city's population virtually "doubles" during the winter when
> >Western tourists (many of them elderly men) fled the cold in
> >their home countries for the pleasant weather and "pleasures"
> >offered by Pattaya, she said.
> >
> >Thousands of young women and girls barely into their teens from
> >the impoverished villages of northern Thailand found "easy jobs"
> >in the resort, she added. Women and adolescent girls from
> >throughout the region - including Myanmar, Cambodia and Vietnam -
> >were brought to work in the sex shops, which masqueraded as pubs,
> >massage parlours and bars. Hundreds of others roamed Pattaya's
> >streets openly soliciting.
> >
> >According to information provided by the organisation ECPAT (End
> >Child Prostitution in Asian Tourism) based in Bangkok, the annual
> >income from the illegal "sex trade" in Thailand, based on the
> >conservative estimate of 200 000 sex workers (25 per cent of them
> >children) is worth nearly 54 billion Baht (US$2.2 billion).
> >
> >Describing the sex trade in Pattaya as "enormous", Good Shepherd
> >Sister Joan Gormley, who works at a Fountain of Life centre for
> >children, told ENI: "We are trying our best to protect the
> >vulnerable children from the vicious atmosphere."
> >
> >Each morning more than 150 children under the age of seven - the
> >offspring of bartenders, municipal cleaners, and prostitutes,
> >many of them living in slums - are picked up in Fountain of Life
> >vans. Teachers and volunteers, supervised by the nuns, take care
> >of the children until their parents return from work.
> >
> >"The atmosphere in the slums is very bad with drugs and
> >prostitution. We prepare the children for school by creating in
> >the children love for knowledge and love for life," said Sister
> >Gormley. This is the only way, according to the Irish nun who
> >speaks fluent Thai, that "we can prevent the children from
> >falling into the vicious racket here".
> >
> >Among the children who attend the Fountain of Life day-care
> >centre are 12 of the 18 children from the CCT project managed by
> >Chumnoi, as well as younger children from the Redemptorist
> >Street-Kids Home for boys.
> >
> >"I am always under pressure to admit more children," said
> >34-year-old Chumnoi.
> >
> >Chumnoi who has been running the CCT Project since its
> >establishment seven years ago, said that the centre should
> >accommodate only 15 children but already had 18 residents. It was
> >"painful", she said, to say "no" to people who brought children
> >abandoned by parents.
> >
> >"Unless we take care of the children, they are sure to end up as
> >prostitutes," said Chumnoi, adding that there was "great demand"
> >for young girls and boys in Pattaya where tourists in their 60s
> >and 70s could be seen strolling the streets with their arms
> >around girls hardly into their teens.
> >
> >The travel agent told ENI that even though she was over 30 she
> >had not married for the simple reason that "Pattaya is not a city
> >for children to grow up. I will go for marriage when I can settle
> >down with a good job outside."
> >
> >"Many families here [in Pattaya] send their children to boarding
> >schools [outside Pattaya]," she said. "Even if parents give good
> >moral education, children's thinking will be influenced by what
> >they see around them."
> >
> >Supagon Noja, director of the Redemptorist Street-Kids Home,
> >told ENI that the home had 55 boys between the age of five and 15
> >and allowed the elder children to work in department stores in
> >the evenings.
> >
> >"But, we never allow them to work in brothels, beer pubs and
> >hotels. That will only get them tangled in the [prostitution]
> >racket," said Noja, a Catholic layman. As the boys grew up, they
> >were sent to Redemptorist institutions and other centres outside
> >Pattaya for vocational training. The Good Shepherd Sisters have a
> >second institution - also known as a Fountain of Life centre -
> >exclusively for young prostitutes - "to wean them away from their
> >profession".
> >
> >The number of women involved in the sex trade, aged between 15
> >and 30, who attend day classes at the centre has risen from 150
> >to 250 in the past two years.
> >
> >"They come to our centre after hearing about it from others,"
> >said Sister Gormley. However, she said it was not possible for
> >ENI's reporter to visit the centre. "These women lack
> >self-confidence. Still, they come to the centre without fear. If
> >they find you there, they will be upset," she said, refusing to
> >give the address of the centre.
> >
> >"Many of them want to quit the profession," Sister Gormley said.
> >The centre's 12 staff provide counselling and training in other
> >trades such as dressmaking, hairdressing and computer education.
> >
> >? In 1996 Thailand enacted tough laws to stop prostitution. But
> >the number of prostitutes has in fact increased since then,
> >mainly because of the Asian economic crisis that has put more
> >than three million workers out of jobs.
> >
> >When asked how the new anti-prostitution laws were being
> >enforced, Sister Gormley refused to comment, while Chumnoi said
> >the law-enforcement agencies "just close their eyes" to what was
> >happening in Pattaya. [1164 words]
> >
> >All articles (c) Ecumenical News International
> >Reproduction permitted only by media subscribers and
> >provided ENI is acknowledged as the source.
> >
> >Ecumenical News International
> >PO Box 2100
> >CH - 1211 Geneva 2
> >Switzerland
> >
> >Tel: (41-22) 791 6087/6515
> >Fax: (41-22) 788 7244
> >Email: [log in to unmask]
> >
> >
> >
> >------------------------  End of message from list: eni-full  ---->
> >