A preteen girl’s disappearance from her house might not make a national news headline because she might go to stay with some friends for a while before returning home later.
But when it was a story of a 12-year-old Padung hilltribe – better known as long neck Karen – in a remote village in the Northern Province of Mae Hong son, the scenario deserved more than the national attention recently.
After one-month absence from her village, the girl returned to her family safely.
Accompanied by five other girls from the same village on the Thai-Myanmar border, she went to work in a resort in Chiang Mai.
Her job was to sell souvenirs and stand together with some tourists in front of a camera. The resort owner promised her a salary of 2,500 Baht per month, which she never received though.
This pre-teen girl decided to return home after working in the resort for a month. She did not say why and how.
This girl was lucky compared to other two long neck Karen girls from a nearby village who had left the birthplace behind in the same fashion a few years ago. Their families have never seen them ever since. Today their fate is still a mystery unsolved.
An unofficial survey has found there are currently around 600 long neck Karen women in three villages in Mae Hong Son. Only at first glance, visitors can tell the ethnic minority originating from Myanmar is now having a different lifestyle.
Their livelihood has shifted from small-scale agriculture to tourism income. The best evidence is that the front parts of their multiple bamboo houses are dedicated to showcasing a wide range of souvenirs on sales for tourists.
The fast changing lifestyle is said to be the main reason why they are prone for being lured into a quasi human zoo elsewhere from their native villages and certainly vulnerable for unimaginable exploitation.
This form of exploitation is highly to persist as long as those state agencies concerned with tourism promotion continue to treat them as tourism products while overlooking their fundamental rights as human beings.
It is high time that the concerned agencies revised their strategies in promoting the lucrative tourism industry. (TNA)
July 1st, 2008 at 10:40 pm
I couldn’t understand some parts of this article , but I guess I just need to check some more resources regarding this, because it sounds interesting.
July 6th, 2008 at 10:04 pm
I couldn’t understand some parts of this article itation of long neck Karen tribe | Thailand Internet TV, but I guess I just need to check some more resources regarding this, because it sounds interesting.