quote:
Lek, 16, from Burma, wasn't just beaten black and blue when she was working as a servant in Bangkok. Her employer also tried to rape her. Lae, 14, from Laos, toiled in a Chinese medicine family business, sweating from 2am to 3am the next day with only one hour's sleep. The employer, a traditional healer, often used shoes to beat her face or slingshots to hit her mouth and body. He sometimes beat her until she blacked out.
Neither Lek nor Lae ever got paid for their work.
...
Racism, said child rights activist Sanpasit Kumprapan, is the answer.
Fear may play a role in an employers' decision to detain child workers in the household, because it is illegal to hire migrant children. Greed might also be at work because the employers want to cut costs and maximise profits.
But it is racism which dehumanises people who do not belong to ``our tribe'' and that enables employers to violate migrant child workers without suffer any nagging of conscience.
More...
The article raises an interesting point about racism within the asian community..I'm not sure racism is the reason these migrant children end up as slaves though. When it comes to the vulnerable, there are always those who will exploit.
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posted 12 August 2003 05:09 PM
