PHETCHABUN, Thailand—The grandmother of a 12-year-old Thai girl who was rescued in Japan as a victim of human trafficking rejected reports that her daughter forced the girl to work in a sex parlor in Tokyo.
Until she left for Japan with her mother in June, the girl had been living with her grandfather, 62, and grandmother, 65, in a village in the northern province of Phetchabun, a five-hour drive from Bangkok.
The grandparents said they learned about the accusations against their daughter through Thai authorities and media reports.
The grandmother described her daughter as a “kind child who has supported the family ever since graduating from high school.”
“I just do not believe that she would make my granddaughter work,” she said.
According to Japanese authorities, the mother left the girl at a “massage parlor” in Tokyo, where she was forced to work.
After around three months essentially on her own, the demoralized girl entered an immigration bureau in the Japanese capital and was taken into protective custody.
The mother was later arrested in Taiwan on suspicion of involvement in prostitution.
NEW INFANT
The grandparents live in a village located in a quiet mountain basin surrounded by sprawling sugarcane fields and rice paddies.
Their modest single-story house gleamed with a newly replaced tin roof, installed during renovations last year. The grandmother said her daughter had covered all the renovation costs.
“(My daughter) always sent us money without fail,” she said.
As for her granddaughter, she said: “She even had a boyfriend. I want to make sure she can attend junior high school.”
The grandparents are longing for the two to return to Thailand.
“Above all else, we just want them both to come home soon.”
According to the grandparents, their daughter, who had been working in Japan to earn money, returned home around June for the first time in a long while.
She was holding a baby just a few months old. The grandparents had no idea who the father was or anything about him.
Soon after, their daughter announced she would be taking the girl, who had just graduated from elementary school, to Japan.
“I want my daughter to help bring back some belongings I left in Japan,” she said.
After the mother and daughter departed from Thailand, the grandparents received a message from Japan, saying, “It is taking time to earn money for the return airfare.”
They heard nothing for more than a month after that.
Their daughter had been the family’s sole breadwinner since her husband died several years ago, leaving the girl and her younger sister, 10, in the care of the grandparents.
At first, she worked at a construction site in Bangkok. Later, she was doing traditional Thai massage work.
After working in Pattaya, a tourist destination near the Thai capital, she began traveling to Singapore and Japan. The grandparents said they had never heard of her going to Taiwan before.
Elderly and suffering from chronic health issues, the grandparents relied entirely on their daughter for support.
“We cannot live without her,” the grandmother said. “What are we supposed to do now?”
STRUGGLING TO SURVIVE
According to the head of their home village, just under 1,000 people live there, and nearly all households are migrants from a drought-prone northeastern region in Thailand.
Many families own neither residential land nor farmland, surviving on day labor that pays about 1,000 yen ($7) a day, roughly 60 percent of the minimum wage, or by working away from home.
Young men who graduate from high school often find work at construction sites or factories near Bangkok, while women take similar jobs or work in the massage industry.
In recent years, more women have gone abroad to countries like Russia and South Korea. Once someone pioneers a path to a certain country, many others tend to follow.
The village head said the case involving the 12-year-old girl is “unbelievable.”
“Sending a daughter into human trafficking because of poverty … that is something from decades ago,” the 49-year-old chief said. “There must be some extraordinary circumstances at play.”
AloJapan.com