Pattaya: no place for a child

Andrew Scadding, director of the Pattaya Orphanage Trust writes: It seems Herr Fritzl, the monster of Amstetten, took his holidays in Thailand. Specifically, he vacationed in Pattaya. You may have seen pictures of him enjoying a massage in the sun by the pool at his hotel. You may have wondered, as I did, what happened meanwhile to the woman and children in the dungeon in Austria. Not much of a holiday for them. They had never seen the sun, never mind the poolside. Who fed them while he was away? Maybe his absence was, pathetically, the best holiday they could have. An all-too-brief respite from his brutality. Not much of a holiday either for the innocent children casually bought, abused and discarded by this twisted man as part of their holiday entertainment. The Drop In Centre in Pattaya recently welcomed a girl who had been sold into prostitution by her mother. The child sought to blot out her awful life by taking amphetamines. She managed just two days in the centre before she was drawn back to her degraded life craving drugs. The wealth of Pattaya depends on the sex industry. Its victims are the women, children - and, yes, the men, too - who are tormented, infected, brutalised, and broken for profit and for pleasure. And when they are rejected - too old, too ill, too broken - who picks up the pieces? We do - with your support, at the Drop In Centre, the Camillian Centre for children with HIV/AIDs, the Good Shepherd Sisters who run several employment projects, the Deaf School, School for the Blind, the Vocational School for young people with disabilities, an Old People's Home and the Street Children's Project. We can make a difference to these vulnerable children's lives. You can too, by making a donation to our work. For more information see: www.pattayaorphanage.org.uk/home/