Salema our street kid and child protection

We first met Salema and her gang of street kids at water festival. They hung out at Aiya's rest. with us many of the days playing in the water. It was one of the only places in town they were welcome.

Later we'd see them throughout town and chat and sometimes have a meal with them.

A couple nights ago, Ben and I heard English shouting behind us, around 10 at night after finishing dinner. We see Salema and two of her friends running towards us terrified. They stop by us shivering and noticeably frightened. Salema speaks a little English, Thai, and of course Burmese. So we make out a little of what they are trying to tell us. We understand someone hit them. They pointed to spots on their bodies where a man in a uniform had beat them. Ben went to go look down the street to see if he could see anything. I talked with the kids. I told them they would be fine that we'd bring them somewhere safe. They lied about not having homes (I knew a little background from a church group that works with them) and said they were not sure where they could go. They said maybe you can bring us to the hotel I think it costs 450 Baht. I have to admit that at this point I was not completely believing them and was wondering if they were scamming us (understandably with their life situation making money is always top priority). So I was a bit surprised when two men in all black uniforms came racing up on their bikes with a club and walkie talkies. The kids immediately looked even more terrified and ran off. I called for them to come back as one of the officers started to chase and bike after them yelling at the kids. Salema came back to us, but the other two had slipped through a crack between two buildings and were off for the dark alleyways of the closed day market. The other officer took off in the other direction to try to coroner the kids. Ben and I were into sure who these guys were: police, immigration, security guards (anyone can buy uniforms and often their are guys that guard stores around Mae Sot or sometimes they can be army for a certain rich Thai. These guys can sometimes be used to traffic kids, etc). Ben started to walk Salema towards our house as I went to try to bike around the main road to see if the kids maybe had turned back around and were waiting anywhere so we could take them home with us. I had no luck finding them. I biked past one of the uniformed guys standing and talking with the Thai police on the street. They began to yell at me i n Thai and wave their arms. I felt angry with them and as I biked pass I just said I don;t speak Thai. I also passed these Thai store owners who were laughing at the scene.

I caught up to Ben and Salmea and Ben went to look for the other kids in the market alleyways (I'm scared of the dogs so thank you Ben). Salema and I started to walk towards our house. A white truck with blow horns raced by and stopped quickly near Salema and I as the same biker officer came pulling up to Salema and I. He tried to grab her and take her. He kept yelling at me and saying "go home" in English. I grabbed Salema back and kept pushing her off behind me so he could not take her and putting the bike between us and him. I told him I was taken Salema home with me. He did not look to happy, but let us go. We waiting for Ben to come back at our house.

When he came he was unable to find the kids even though he search all over the dark market and had dogs try to bite him and saw some weird people hiding out.

Salema was really worried about her friends and said she thought she knew where they were hiding. We were worried that the two would get beat, arrested, etc. So the three of us went together. Ben grabbed a bike chain to hit at the dogs with and we grabbed a copy of our passports and some cash in case we had to bribe them.

Salema took us to places that I had no clue existed. We saw a backroom with a pool table and some young guys hanging out, saw a bunch of dogs. Had a group of 5 try to bite us (seriously these dogs are ridiculous!). I felt so bad for Salema, because everytime she saw a dog she almost screamed.Once she even jumped when she saw a statue of a dog. (She's been bite a couple times. Once on the butt also. Poor thing). Ben and I got some weird stares from people (I don't think most foreigners go hanging out in the alleys at night). At one point we were even shimming through the tiny walk ways between the buildings to try to avoid going on the main street where the police, etc were still and to see if the kids were hiding down them. At this point we gave up and headed back home. She came to ours cuz she had said she could not go home unless she made 1000 Baht for rent to give to her mom and dad.

We colored, watched a kid's movie, and fed her some food. She took a shower and we had an extra toothbrush for her. She did not really like the tooth paste and looked at me weird when I showed her how to brush and spit it out. But she loved having a shower and brushing her hair. It was very warm and endearing like a little family sitting around. I even helped her comb her hair. We set her up on the couch for the night.

Later that night we woke up to Salema crying and tried to comfort her so she could get back to sleep. I kept thinking all night about what to do in the morning. She told us that night she did not like to work the streets.

The next morning our Burmese housemate made her some breakfast. Salema had folded up all the sheets and blankets. I called MTC child protection office and Barbara referred me to Compassio or World Vision as organizations that work with the street kids. Salmea and I colored some more pictures waiting for 1 pm to go to the place where they feed the kids lunch for free, but our landlord showed up and it felt a little awkward to have a street kid hanging around, so we took off early. Comapssio's office was closed and the lunch spot had been shut down. We went thought the market and decided to look for the other kids. We looked back by the pool hall and found a back alley way with about 10 street families all crouched along the side, lots of young babies. Shortly after we found the kids. They were jealous of Salema and they all wanted to stay at our house and color. (The next evening I found them and gave them a bunch of coloring books and crayons since they absolutely loved them so much... thanks mom and Missy's family for the art supplies donations). Yikes. Told them no ( I can't start running a street kid drop in center out of my rental house- plus we're here only for a week or so more) but that they could come with me to world vision. So they followed me across town. We ran into Attelle's (the other girl) father, but he did not say much our really acknowledge any of the kids or myself. On the way to World Vision people seriously tried to run over the kids. This happened twice. The driver almost pulled out in front of me, stopped allowed me to pass, and then looking at the kids pulled out in front of them. Other drivers drove really close to the kids as we walked by. I noticed this because it was much closer and more dangerous than anyone usually drives by myself when I am out walking. Many people gave us really dirty looks and said some things that did not appear to be to friendly or encouraging. The Thais are tired of the kids.

We got to World Vision and the staff looked a little awkward at first. A foreign woman and four street kids (Attelle had her little brother with her- no diaper or shorts on) in tow. The kids were so excited to come into the office and to sit on this nice furniture. I set them up with some crayons and paper and world vision brought them some juice drinks. Meanwhile they had two other organizations show up and we had a tiny conference. I stated I'd ;like them to hear the kids story about the security guards, I'd like some advocacy done with the guards to try to educate them about street kids and encourage them to not beat them but rather contact one of the other social agencies to try to help with the problem (street kids are a social problem, not a police problem, but there is not formal system in place to help with this and the organizations helping are trying hard, but it is a difficult task with many layers). and lastly to advocate with the parents to have the kids home before dark for their safety. I figured they could tell the parents that the kids were almsot arrested last night which would mean no money for them and that maybe this would encourage them to allow their kids to return home at night.

The one organization stated they had been working with the girl and her family for a long time and that their situation is not so bad (relative to other families where the kids are beat constantly). They told me they would try to talk to the police/ guards and the parents again even though they have already in the past, and that Salema's mom actually wants her to return home at night, but that Salema does not want to that she likes the streets. I asked her is she totally believed her mom because I thought maybe both parent and child maybe be used to having to tell people what they want to hear and be planful or manipulative about what they communicate. The woman asked Salema if she wanted to go to school and stop working the streets. Salema gave a half committal answer. It is difficult she is used to the streets and the freedom and has known really nothing else, so to ask her to change this is pretty difficult. (and in my opinion it is not reasonable to expect a child to really be able to make those kind of decisions with full commitment. If she had left that morning I would have thought she did not want a change, but cuz she stayed and seemed to be looking to me to do something to make her life better). Comapssio will open a drop-in center which has some cons but I think the pros out way any of the cons. It will be a place the kids can go to find caring people and to do some informal activities. I left the office feeling like I had done what I could, but still feeling like I and the other adults were failing her. I couldn't really take her away from her family obviously, but all those kids wanted to have this warm, safe, caring place to go. (Salema's family life is filled with yelling, etc). They just were not completely ready to commit to a structured life style. I ran into her later back in the market and our interaction seemed so valueless (like our experience had just been one more let down or chance encounter she'd had with a foreigner or an adult for that matter). I was not feeling so great at this point and was really feeling like the lack of child protection was just so sad at this point.

Luckily, I had been talking with Barbara at MTC CP and Liberty at World Education. Liberty wanted to meet to talk about CP and her possible funding she could get through unicef or American Aid. Barbara and I had been talking about how she had been pushing for things to take action for 2 years now, but the difficulties MTC clinic has at organization and managing things. As you've read previously MTC and the on the side of town (the bigger NGOs) have notoriously been at odds. But Friday... I had Liberty and Barbara meet. And it went really really well. WE has the education. training background, may possibly be able to get funding, and is much more organized, while MTC has been getting people together for months and holding meetings (although unproductive in nature, but netherless at least trying) and also has some great resources started. A referral system for CP (Like a directory of the agencies and who does what). This is much more difficult to do in a situation like this because people are at risk with immigration, SPDC, and police if it were to get into the wrong hands.

But anyway, after some talking we were able to form a team to push hard for child protection!!!! Greg the director of WE agred to do a propsal to Unicef at the meeting in Bangkok on June 9th for CP on the migrant community. Barbara and Liberty and Greg will attend. This meeting will discuss how this CP referral system has been implemented in the camps and the strengths and weaknesses along with a chance to talk with unicef. Barbara has also done some research on the migrant community on child protection statistics which should help aid the case.

YEAH!!!! :):)

I am so happy for this. This was a major bridge to take place and this is the push that was needed to really begin to get this stuff in place.

Recently, Salema and her friends called us around 8:30 pm stating the security guards were trying to arrest them again. I told them we'd take them for dinner, and then we'd walk them home since it is dangerous at night. We had dinner, but then they refused to go home and had wanted to stay at our house. I knew something like this might happen, so I stayed strong and said that we'd take them home, but they can't stay. They told me their parents would beat them if they went home with no money. It was so difficult, but I told them if that was true that we'd need to talk with Compassio and we'd protect them. However, in the past they'd denied being beat by their parents and refuse to leave or go to school. I sounded like it was not pleasant and the parents were emotionally abusive, but I can't run a boarding house out of my rental home, plus if I continue to do this it enables them to remain on the street. (I wish I could just adopt them all. They need so much).

it was really really hard though. They returned to our house later that night and sat outside the gate. I told them we'd walk them home, but that they could not stay. To come back tomorrow (I was taking one of the girls to the clinic cuz she had an eye infection). They stayed outside for a hour. It was horrible. I felt like I was making the right and difficult decision, but I'm just not sure. Street kids are tough. I feel really guilty. Again the Child protection stuff will be good for Mae Sot.