Lop Buri
Thailand
Asia
Monday, January 14, 2013
Thailand long recognized as one of the friendliest and most welcoming countries on the planet. But that is on the surface and is a very well crafted image that has been built down the years thanks to some very astute and aware marketing gurus.
But underneath this admirable façade one does not have far to go to find swathes of people living in poverty and despair not knowing where the money will come from to buy the next bowl of rice which usually costs around 30 cents from a street cart trader. Poverty is rife both in the inner cities and in the vast rural farming areas where there is often no industry and manufacturing work.

Unemployment is high – Money is limited at best which drives people deeper into depression and despair. Then what happens as a last ditch effort to get some food on  the family table, desperate times fuel incomprehensible decisions.
This is one such recent example in Lop Buri Thailand parents sell 13 year old daughter for 2000 THB Thai Baht – approximately $60 USD Dollars. Here is a news clip we came across – quote – LOP BURI: — A mother forced her 13-year-old daughter to marry a 34-year-old man who paid a bride price of 2,000 baht, The Pavena Foundation for Women and Children (Pavena) reported on Friday.

The girl told foundation staff that the man had come over for a drink with her parents at her home on Tuesday. He later entered her room and hugged her while she was sleeping. He fled after she screamed for help.

The following day, the man came into her room again and forced her to have sex with him. When she told her parents, they asked the man to come over and then offered her as his bride for 2,000 baht.

Foundation chairwoman Pavena Hongsakul and the police immediately went to the child’s house after receiving complaints from villagers about the incident. The man, his parents, and the victim’s parents were brought in for questioning.

The man and his relatives protested that he had done nothing wrong. They said that there were other men in the village who had married and lived with girls who were 12 or 13 years old.

Ms Pavena said that event though the parents from both sides gave their consent for the marriage, it still violated the law which protects children below the age of 15. The government has full authority to intervene.

The child will receive trauma treatment from the Ministry of Social Development and Human Security, she added. – Attribution to BangkokPost.Com

We all live in a harsh and complex world and selling children is wrong period, but blaming the parents will not stop or get to the route of why this innocent child was demeaned and glibly traded off as a commodity. One has to look much deeper and I think time will prove that the parents had no formal education and in fact doing the same as many others in the surrounding community in the belief that morally it was acceptable and within law. Hard to believe yes for billions who have not traveled extensively and been given a harrowing real life introduction to poverty.

Lop Buri Thai Parents Sell Daughter 13 for $60 USD Dollars…