In Gear | Rotary in Southern New Zealand Issue 2 | Page 21

Akha children are particularly at risk of abduction into sex slavery because they are ‘stateless’, with no status or citizenship.

no value to the brothel owner, so they’re thrown out on
the streets and left to die.

prostitutes in Bangkok. They took David down to the
streets of Pattaya, to the infamous Walking Street.

“Until that point, though, these children are a very, very
valuable commodity, because, unlike illegal drugs or
arms that can only be sold once, these kids can be sold
for repeat business over and over and over again.”

“There was a scant police presence,” David recalls.
“There were young boys playing down at the beach.
The woman told us, in a couple of hours’ time, the cops
would be gone and those young boys would be up on
the street, selling themselves.”

Many children are abducted into child sex slavery at
such a young age, David says, they know nothing else,
no other way of
life.

And, if someone wanted a really, really young child,
she told David and
pointed to a man
walking along the
For $20 or $30, you can take one
street, they need
of those little kids and you can do only approach that
guy.

“They
probably
think that this
is why they’ve
whatever the hell you like to them
been put on the
planet – just to
“She
said
he
for an hour. That is the reality.
service
these
carried a postcard
And, there’s a market for it.”
stereotypically
montage of all the
white,
middlesick and depraved
aged males who will travel half way around the world,
stuff you can engage in – you just tell him what you
o ften leaving a wife and children at home, while they
want, a young boy or a young girl, and they’ll take you
go and commit these power atrocities against innocent
away, four blocks away from the glitz, glamour and
children.”
neon lights, to a place where they’ve got these kids
literally locked up in cages like dogs.
If he was in any doubt as to the extent of depravity
that’s rife in child sex slavery, that ended during his
“For $20 or $30, you can take one of those little kids
first visit to Thailand in 2009. He met up with an ex-pat
and you can do whatever the hell you like to them for
Kiwi couple, who, in their 80s, ran a safe house for child
an hour. That is the reality. And, there’s a market for it.

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