Our journey through Thailand brought us to the town of Mae Sot that borders the Thai-Burma boundary along the Moei River. Known for its large concentration of Burmese immigrants, both legal and illegal, this ‘in-between space’ further conceals a group of people whose exploitation and suffering are not as widely documented as others: the children. Embedded within ‘spaces of silence’ with no avenue and means of voicing their quagmire, these Burmese children are silent casualties of the social and economic complications arising from the political turmoil in Burma and the lack of proper legislation governing the borderland.
PHOTO 1: LOOKING ACROSS THE MOEI RIVER FROM MAE SOT, THAILAND INTO THE BORDER TOWN OF MYAWADDY, MYANMAR
PHOTO 2: CHILD RUBBISH COLLECTORS BY THE BORDER
PHOTO 3: CHILDREN SELLING GOODS IN THE BORDER MARKET RIM MOEI MARKET
In addition to being trapped between two political spaces on a transborder scale vis-a-vis spatial regulation by the Thai state and political oppression by the Burmese military government, these children are also vulnerable to exploitation in the family and communal sphere, where they are forced to do labored work as shown in the photos above. Engaging in work along the Moei River also exposes them to environmental risk in the form of hazards, pollution, health problems and diseases. Social, environmental and economic hardship are thus filtered down from the transborder scale (Thailand and Burma), to the local social institutional scale (family and community), and finally to the bodies scale (children).
We were also fortunate enough to chance upon a Filipino female missionary, who shared with us how the Burmese children are sold by their families (in order to alleviate their economic situation) and exploited via illegal sex trade and services. According to her, these activities usually take place in the Mae Sot market from 5pm onwards serving pedophiles from many other countries, thus operating as the invisible underbelly of the (trans)local tourism landscape. Upon reaching a certain age, the children are then smuggled to Bangkok for factory work or other low-paid labor.
Photo 4: Visit to the shelter for trafficked kids
Photo 5: Children within the shelter
Photo 6: Maria, female missionary behind the children shelter
Photo 7: Fortunate kids who escaped the hands of child traffickers
Hence, while the Burmese families of these ‘in-between spaces’ have to suffer the social and economic ramifications of being illegal immigrants and refugees, it is often the children that bear most of the brunt. To make things worse, these children do not have the awareness or the means to voice their predicament, thus making them invisible casualties within ‘spaces of silence’. However, it was heartening to know that the situation of these children have already attracted international attention. NGOs and Christian missionaries have set up schools in the Mae Sot district that aim to provide education for the children in hopes of improving their livelihood. The Children Development Center (CDC) of the Mae Tao Clinic is one good example of such initiatives.
Children are the beacon of our future. Thus, there is a need to protect them from the vulnerabilities of the present in order for them to change the future. This will hopefully put a stop to the vicious cycle of poverty, stigma and oppression that currently plagues the Thai-Burma border landscape.
