This week we have to bring a story to class. This is the story that I did when I was in Thailand in 2005. It was published on Vietnam Investment Review.
No place to call home
Update: 18-7-2005
Tempted by the prospects of a better future, numerous females choose to leave their own country in search of work in a foreign land, while others unwittingly fall victim to the cruel trade of human trafficking. Either way, Nguyen Thi Cam Thuy finds out that life for a female migrant worker in Thailand is dirty, dangerous and degrading.
Burmese migrant worker accommodation in Thailand
“I want to go home.”
This is the dream of 23-year-old Thi Ai, a slim, long-dark-haired Vietnamese woman, who left her family in Daklak, a province in the centre of Vietnam for Ho Chi Minh City to look for work when she was only 16 years old. She was trafficked to Malaysia for one year as a sex worker, and her job was to serve men at six tables for 10 hours a day without any pay except for tips from customers. She was arrested in Thailand after escaping from Malaysia. Now she is living in the Home for Girls, in Pakred Island, Thailand.
Hers is not the only tragic story of a young girl being trafficked. In the far north of Thailand, in the village of Pong Hai, Mae Aye District, though only 37 years old, Nauui Yamsauuat, a small, pale-faced woman does not have much time for dreaming. She has been infected with HIV/AIDS which she contracted after leaving her family in a poor mountainous area to look for a job in Chiang Mai in 1986, and was tricked to work as a prostitute.
Chiang Mai is a destination for both Thai people and foreigners. Living in a crowded, ramshackle shanty with other Burmese workers toiling on construction sites, Ma Nan Mu Khan, a 36-year-old woman is expected to do the same amount of work as a man, but she is paid only 135 Baht ($3.27) per day in comparison with 180 Baht ($4.37) for men.
It is not only in Thailand, but also in all over the world, that migrant women are among the most vulnerable to exploitation and abuse, mainly because they are outside the legal protection of their homeland and because they work in jobs, such as domestic servants, prostitutes, entertainers, and contract manual labour, which are not covered by labour legislation. Their situation is made worse by the fact that they are usually young and poor, live in fear of losing their jobs, do not speak the language of the host country; are unaware that their rights are being infringed and normally do not know where to go for help.
Many also end up in a situation of debt bondage, having borrowed money to pay for the cost of obtaining an overseas job or having being duped by unscrupulous agents or employers, according to a research by International Labour Organisation (ILO), which was updated in 21 Feb, 2005.
In 2000, an estimated 175 million migrant workers, permanent immigrant, refugees and their dependents were living outside their country of origin or citizenship, according to ILO’s statistics. By the year 2005, this number rose to 185 million, according to recent statistics by the International Organisation of Migration. Women account for an increasing proportion of international migrants, from 47 per cent in 1960 to 49 per cent in 2000, reflecting the rising importance of family reunification, especially in more developed countries, according to ILO’s research.
In Thailand, there are at least two million migrant workers, 89 per cent of whom are from Burma, 55 per cent of this number are women. Most of them work in seafood factories or at construction sites. Women constitute only 25 per cent of Cambodian migrant workers, but among Laotians, more women than men are migrant workers, according to 2004 statistics from the Migrant Action Programme (MAP), an NGO based in Chiang Mai. This is due to the fact that Laotian men are not skilled at fishing – an industry occupied by many migrant men, according to Raks Thai Foundation. Most migrant workers who were asked about their motivation for migrating said they wanted to earn more money.
“My parents opposed my decision, but my family was so poor at that time. My father was sick; my mother had injured her leg. We needed money,” Nauui said. A couple persuaded her to come to Chiang Mai to work as a bar waitress, but trafficked her as a prostitute. She earned 1,500 Baht ($36.39) per month in Chiang Mai, but her savings were only 600 Baht ($14.55) per month due to the 2,000 Baht ($48.49) her owner had to pay police each month for her not having an ID card, she said.
Similar to Nauui’s case, Thi Ai (not her real name) was told to come to Malaysia to work as a housemaid with a salary of thousands of dollars per month. “I have never dreamed about such large amount of money,” she sadly smiled. Her mother died when she was only 6 years old. Her father got married to another woman. She decided to leave her family to live on her own in Ho Chi Minh City. She left her job as a bar waitress for Malaysia where she was trafficked to work in a karaoke bar without any salary for one year. “I have to fulfill my debt of $3,000 to the karaoke owner for giving me a job. I get tips of 2,000 – 3,000 ringgits ($520–$780) from customers each month, but I use it up for meals, accommodation and cosmetics,” she said.
However, some women said they migrate for other reasons than money. Mar Mar, a single, university-educated, 44-year-old Burmese woman has a different story to tell. In 1989 she opened an art gallery in Mandalay, a central city in Burma, with friends in 1989. The government then closed the gallery and arrested some of her friends, accusing them of being communists. After that, she opened another gallery in 1993 in Tachileik, a Burmese town near the border of northern Thailand, but it was closed again in 1996 because of fighting between the Burmese Army and the Mong Tai army. She decided to move to Chiang Mai to open her art gallery again. “Living and working in Chiang Mai is quite comfortable,” she said.
Mar Mar is a special case in Thailand. Almost all migrant women work in the agricultural sector, domestic jobs, entertainment, food processing, garment factories, sex service, or even in construction, according to “Untangling Vulnerability: A Study on HIV/AIDS Prevention Programming for Migrant Fishermen and Related Populations in Thailand” published by the Raks Thai Foundation.
Migrant workers are often relegated to the “three Ds” jobs – dirty, dangerous, and degrading. Jobs that national workers reject or are not available for, according to ILO. Ma Nan Mu Khan is living with her family in a crowded camp for Burmese workers at construction sites in Chiang Mai. More than 10 cramped cottages without bed, table, kitchen or toilet are crammed into about 100-square-metres (sqm). Forty residents share one toilet and an outdoor place in front of their accommodation is set aside for bathing and washing clothes. A woman living there earns only 135 Baht ($3.27) per day while a man with similar kind of work can earn 180 – 200 Baht ($4.37 - $4.85) per day. This is because women cannot work as hard as men, as some Burmese men and women at a construction site in Chiang Mai believe.
Most migrant women suffer in unhealthy, sometimes abusive conditions. “I had to work from 5pm to 5am every day,” Thi Ai said. “I was locked in a 20sqm room with about 16 women, most of them Vietnamese and Cambodian.” They were not allowed to go out. Meals and drinks were brought in when needed, she said.
“The first night with an American man was really terrible for me.” Her voice became softer. “I was very scared and cried a lot. The karaoke owner threatened to beat me if I did not satisfy that man.” She was asked to use ecstasy by a customer so that she could fully satisfy him. “That made me impossible to sleep then,” she said.
Some women are even sexually abused. A 14-year-old Burmese girl who works as shrimp peeler in Samut Sakorn, a southern province near the sea, was raped three months ago by a shrimp factory owner’s son, according to San Tun from Raks Thai Foundation.
Health is another problem for migrant workers. The Thai public often regard the over one million migrant workers in Thailand with illegal status as the source of many diseases. Yet these migrants and their dependents are not allowed easy access to health information and medical treatment, according to Raks Thai Foundation.
Migrant women suffer some serious diseases of the skin, stress related disorders, lung disease, malaria, dengue fever and elephantitis. By necessity, many migrants are forced to live with up to 10 or more people in close quarters, which creates conditions that spread contagious diseases like tuberculosis.
One of the most dangerous diseases that women migrants face is HIV/AIDS, said Jackie Pollock, Project Coordinator of Migrant Action Programme.
Nauui, from Pong Hai, knows this risk very well. “When I knew that I was infected with HIV, I was horribly desperate. In my work place in Chiang Mai, 30 had already died of AIDS-related diseases,” she said.
“Another four have AIDS and remain alive - including me,” she added.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Jobless - Houseless - Homeless
When I first arrived in Sydney last June, I was immediately impressed by homeless people lying or sitting on the streets. Such miserable images obsessed me that I always pay attention to them from that time on.
On a pavement of George street near Town Hall, there is always an old man lying head down and sleeping regardless of street noise and people walking by. His clothes are in rags and tatters and very dirty. Hardly ever have I seen his face though I passed by him so many times. He looks miserable with his clumsy stuffs around and a written paper sits on his head which begs for people’s charity. Unfortunately I don’t have any picture of him. Such pitty man makes me think like “never hurt him by any means”.
I call him “homeless person” who is not only lack of shelters but also has nothing to do with a lack of shelter. This situation is not rare in Vietnam. But here in Australia, a developed country, it impresses me much. According to the 2001 Population Census data posted on Homeless Statistics, there are 99,900 houseless people in Australia of whom 54% are adults at over 24 years of age, and 10% are under the age of 12 years. Less than half of them are female. (Unluckily these statistics are so old. I'm going to search for updated ones).
Unlike Vietnam, women get lots of priviledge in Australia in comparison to men. That is why this image kept my steps when I was in Hyde Park on the International Women’s Day, March 3, 2008. While other women were happily gathering in the park to celebrate the Women’s Day with colorful baloons, fresh flowers and beautiful dresses, there was an old women sleeping under blazing sunshine. Lots of doves were surrounding her.
She looked quite old with her white hair and wrinkles on her face. Even her eyebrows faded. She was lying on some papers. She might not be an homeless women I hope, but how could you think in such context?
Analysing the reason for houselessness, Homeless Statistics shows that 20% of the reasons is domestic and family violence. I couldn’t think of this reason as a major one before I got this. The other reasons are relationship and family breakdown and financial difficulty. In a previous lesson of mine, a statistic revealed 50% of Vietnamese male in Sydney were unemployed. But I think this number does not reflect the real situation, because many people may declair their unemployment to get social welfare whereas they still have jobs. However, look at this old man in Botanic Garden. Unemployed people, houseless people and homeless people often take this public seats as their bed days and nights:
In an ABC radio program, , a homeless person said: “Living on the streets with only the barest essentials, begging for money, trying to find shelter for the night or simply trying to find your next meal are the main struggles of the day.” Another one explained why he became homeless: “The artwork in front of you, it's also a poem as well, is inspired by my son who I lost 6 years ago, and it was a drug and alcohol related thing. And the thing for me was that I needed to get that stuff out of me. Because one of the reasons I ended up on the street is when I lost him and my family afterwards because basically of the stress of that kind of thing. I didn't want to be around, I didn't want to have a life.”
The City of Sydney has a dedicated Homelessness Unit. They provide lots of services. Each year, this unit help many thousands of homeless people, providing them with information, advice, accommodation and practical support.
Recently, Sydney Morning Herald reported that Mission Australia and a real estate website cooperated to raise money for housing homeless people. For every click on the website, the real estate website realestate.com.au will donate one dollar to the Mission Australia charity, up to a total of $100,000. I don't know how this money would be used. We hope that with such services, homeless people will have better living condition and get jobs.
On a pavement of George street near Town Hall, there is always an old man lying head down and sleeping regardless of street noise and people walking by. His clothes are in rags and tatters and very dirty. Hardly ever have I seen his face though I passed by him so many times. He looks miserable with his clumsy stuffs around and a written paper sits on his head which begs for people’s charity. Unfortunately I don’t have any picture of him. Such pitty man makes me think like “never hurt him by any means”.
I call him “homeless person” who is not only lack of shelters but also has nothing to do with a lack of shelter. This situation is not rare in Vietnam. But here in Australia, a developed country, it impresses me much. According to the 2001 Population Census data posted on Homeless Statistics, there are 99,900 houseless people in Australia of whom 54% are adults at over 24 years of age, and 10% are under the age of 12 years. Less than half of them are female. (Unluckily these statistics are so old. I'm going to search for updated ones).
Unlike Vietnam, women get lots of priviledge in Australia in comparison to men. That is why this image kept my steps when I was in Hyde Park on the International Women’s Day, March 3, 2008. While other women were happily gathering in the park to celebrate the Women’s Day with colorful baloons, fresh flowers and beautiful dresses, there was an old women sleeping under blazing sunshine. Lots of doves were surrounding her.
She looked quite old with her white hair and wrinkles on her face. Even her eyebrows faded. She was lying on some papers. She might not be an homeless women I hope, but how could you think in such context?
Analysing the reason for houselessness, Homeless Statistics shows that 20% of the reasons is domestic and family violence. I couldn’t think of this reason as a major one before I got this. The other reasons are relationship and family breakdown and financial difficulty. In a previous lesson of mine, a statistic revealed 50% of Vietnamese male in Sydney were unemployed. But I think this number does not reflect the real situation, because many people may declair their unemployment to get social welfare whereas they still have jobs. However, look at this old man in Botanic Garden. Unemployed people, houseless people and homeless people often take this public seats as their bed days and nights:
In an ABC radio program, , a homeless person said: “Living on the streets with only the barest essentials, begging for money, trying to find shelter for the night or simply trying to find your next meal are the main struggles of the day.” Another one explained why he became homeless: “The artwork in front of you, it's also a poem as well, is inspired by my son who I lost 6 years ago, and it was a drug and alcohol related thing. And the thing for me was that I needed to get that stuff out of me. Because one of the reasons I ended up on the street is when I lost him and my family afterwards because basically of the stress of that kind of thing. I didn't want to be around, I didn't want to have a life.”Some people earn money by playing music in railway tunnels, some dress themselves uniquely and impressively like this to beg for money. They let tourists take photos with them and get some coins:
The City of Sydney has a dedicated Homelessness Unit. They provide lots of services. Each year, this unit help many thousands of homeless people, providing them with information, advice, accommodation and practical support.Recently, Sydney Morning Herald reported that Mission Australia and a real estate website cooperated to raise money for housing homeless people. For every click on the website, the real estate website realestate.com.au will donate one dollar to the Mission Australia charity, up to a total of $100,000. I don't know how this money would be used. We hope that with such services, homeless people will have better living condition and get jobs.
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
VangAnh Blog or VangAnh News Agency?
Talking about blogs, it reminds me of a strong wave of Vietnamese blogs which provides readers with unofficial streams of information. Many sensitive issues that mainstream media can not cover are available in wide ranges of blogs. Each entry of hot issue may raise unpredictablly social affects.
Just have a look at VangAnh blog as an example. It was created in Yahoo 360 which is the most popular type of blogs in Vietnam because many people use yahoo mail and yahoo messenger. Its name is Thong Tan Xa Vang Anh, which means Vang Anh News Agency. This blogger ambitiously wants it to be an unofficial news agency as he called it. And the fact is that, it becomes very famous now together with DieuCay blog (by a freelance Vietnamese journalist), Osin blog (by a famous reporter), or TrangHa blog (a famous reporter and writer with her blog pageview is now more than 5 millions).
Built on 20 October, 2007, VangAnh blog currently has 234 postings which mostly about political situations in Vietnam. It first started with a scandal of a young actress in Hanoi last year. She played Vang Anh, the main teenage character in a famous sitcom Vang Anh's Diary. She had been a good mirror for school students before her sex video leaked on internet. It was really a huge shock for everyone. "Vang Anh" used to be one of the most popular keyword on google search engine at that time. Covering this story and being named after it, Vang Anh blog is expected to get as many pageview as possible. And somehow it's successful.
One of the key of success is that VangAnh blog has made efforts in collecting news, pictures, information and videos and focused on political issues. However, 40 tags in his blog are not effective enough like what he highlights on the right-hand side panel with various issues such as Hoang Sa and Truong Sa islands, Olympic relay in Vietnam, and police corruption, etc. Blogrolls on the left-hand side are other links.
There are a lot of comments in VangAnh blog. Each posting gets around 50 comments depending on readers' interest and blogger's effort. Readers are from various regions in the world. For his latest entry, there are 172,526 pageviews which are respectively from Vietnam, the US, France, Australia, Germany, Singapore, Canada, China, the UK, and Korea, etc. It gets 70 c0mments.
One more thing to win pageview is that relevant and hot links are placed under each posting so that readers can easily follow. This is a very effective way which has been applied to all mainstream websites.
The latest posting of VangAnh blog is about a protest in front of the Government house. It reveals the protest with lots of images and videos which have never appeared in mainstream media. It is updated quickly.
Blogs in Vietnam are not under control now. However, there appears new type of yahoo blog which is yahoo plus for Vietnamese bloggers with Vietnamese interface. Only some bloggers have shifted to yahoo plus, because almost everyone does not want to put himself under any control.
Just have a look at VangAnh blog as an example. It was created in Yahoo 360 which is the most popular type of blogs in Vietnam because many people use yahoo mail and yahoo messenger. Its name is Thong Tan Xa Vang Anh, which means Vang Anh News Agency. This blogger ambitiously wants it to be an unofficial news agency as he called it. And the fact is that, it becomes very famous now together with DieuCay blog (by a freelance Vietnamese journalist), Osin blog (by a famous reporter), or TrangHa blog (a famous reporter and writer with her blog pageview is now more than 5 millions).
Built on 20 October, 2007, VangAnh blog currently has 234 postings which mostly about political situations in Vietnam. It first started with a scandal of a young actress in Hanoi last year. She played Vang Anh, the main teenage character in a famous sitcom Vang Anh's Diary. She had been a good mirror for school students before her sex video leaked on internet. It was really a huge shock for everyone. "Vang Anh" used to be one of the most popular keyword on google search engine at that time. Covering this story and being named after it, Vang Anh blog is expected to get as many pageview as possible. And somehow it's successful.
One of the key of success is that VangAnh blog has made efforts in collecting news, pictures, information and videos and focused on political issues. However, 40 tags in his blog are not effective enough like what he highlights on the right-hand side panel with various issues such as Hoang Sa and Truong Sa islands, Olympic relay in Vietnam, and police corruption, etc. Blogrolls on the left-hand side are other links.
There are a lot of comments in VangAnh blog. Each posting gets around 50 comments depending on readers' interest and blogger's effort. Readers are from various regions in the world. For his latest entry, there are 172,526 pageviews which are respectively from Vietnam, the US, France, Australia, Germany, Singapore, Canada, China, the UK, and Korea, etc. It gets 70 c0mments.
One more thing to win pageview is that relevant and hot links are placed under each posting so that readers can easily follow. This is a very effective way which has been applied to all mainstream websites.
The latest posting of VangAnh blog is about a protest in front of the Government house. It reveals the protest with lots of images and videos which have never appeared in mainstream media. It is updated quickly.
Blogs in Vietnam are not under control now. However, there appears new type of yahoo blog which is yahoo plus for Vietnamese bloggers with Vietnamese interface. Only some bloggers have shifted to yahoo plus, because almost everyone does not want to put himself under any control.
Friday, May 2, 2008
Listen to 'the Lady'
Have you ever said for sure that you understand women? Have you ever heard what they say intimately? Have you ever seen this?
Can you imagine that this is a wall of a female toilet at level 3, Building 1, UTS? Lots of writings used to be exhibited there before they were cleaned out.
Small corners or unexpected places may give you amazing information. When I was at school, I was so much interested in what were written on the old wooden tables in my classes. They might be some poems, or sayings, or whatever pupils thought about. They might be a message that a morning-class pupil wanted to send to a afternoon-class one.
Here at UTS, the tables are empty but the toilets' walls are not. It's so interesting to see what girls think. This might be written by a undergraduate student:
Another line is a funny definition of love:
Toilet walls can be ideal place where girls freely express their feelings. You are alone with the walls, no one disturbs you. Your senses are calming down and relaxing. That is why there are so many lines such as "I miss Sebastian" and "I miss Fran Drescher" all over the wall. And they got reply:
It's not only love and feelings but also what students always care about: Exams and assignments. Toilet walls are where girls express their stress and worries. It's simple, but it speaks the loudest voice about students' life. Why you have to go somewhere to get information for your story? Why not come to the toilet and see? It's the truest feelings that people speak out. You can have quote and information as well, haha.
Sometimes you can see a sad story that you don't know whether to belive it or not. Do you think it's true? Is it written by a miserable girl who has been raped? Is that another story about students that you may want to follow? What do you think?
Can you imagine that this is a wall of a female toilet at level 3, Building 1, UTS? Lots of writings used to be exhibited there before they were cleaned out.Small corners or unexpected places may give you amazing information. When I was at school, I was so much interested in what were written on the old wooden tables in my classes. They might be some poems, or sayings, or whatever pupils thought about. They might be a message that a morning-class pupil wanted to send to a afternoon-class one.
Here at UTS, the tables are empty but the toilets' walls are not. It's so interesting to see what girls think. This might be written by a undergraduate student:
Another line is a funny definition of love:
Toilet walls can be ideal place where girls freely express their feelings. You are alone with the walls, no one disturbs you. Your senses are calming down and relaxing. That is why there are so many lines such as "I miss Sebastian" and "I miss Fran Drescher" all over the wall. And they got reply:
It's not only love and feelings but also what students always care about: Exams and assignments. Toilet walls are where girls express their stress and worries. It's simple, but it speaks the loudest voice about students' life. Why you have to go somewhere to get information for your story? Why not come to the toilet and see? It's the truest feelings that people speak out. You can have quote and information as well, haha.
Sometimes you can see a sad story that you don't know whether to belive it or not. Do you think it's true? Is it written by a miserable girl who has been raped? Is that another story about students that you may want to follow? What do you think?
Yes, it's all on toilet walls...
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Let's start a blog
Today we, oj1_fri class, learn to create a blog in blogspot.com. It may be lots of fun which is a combination of what-we-have-to-do (our assignments) and recreation.
I'm going to submit to see how it looks like.
Oopssssss!!!!!!!!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
