Homepage > Thai Youth Issues > Homeless kids find a family on the streets

Date: June 25, 2001, The Nation

For many, living under a bridge is better than staying with abusive parents.

They live on the streets, without any real hope for the future. Many are addicted to drugs and frequently engage in reckless sexual activity. But Bangkok's homeless youths say they're happy enough just watching the days go by.

"I have nothing to hope for, but at the same time I'm totally free. I have no house, no parents and no future," said 18-year-old Waew, who ran away from home four years ago.

She lives a life devoid of expectations, saying she prefers to live day to day without any concern for what is to come.

A lack of warmth from her family prompted her to leave home and live among the homeless children and other vagabonds under Arunammarin Bridge, where they hang together, chatting, drinking, sniffing glue and smoking. Waew said the vagrants understood each other's problems, all but ignored by their families and the outside world.

"At first I was scared. I was afraid I would be raped," Waew recalled.

However, the girl said she feared nothing now, accustomed as she has become to glue-sniffing and sexual relationships with men.

Waew prefers being homeless to living with her mother, who went bankrupt betting on the underground lottery and seduced men to help repay her debts, while her father was irresponsible and hardly ever at home.

"My mum loved to dress me in beautiful clothes and wanted me to be good at my studies simply to save face for her.

"She doesn't love me. I was under a lot of pressure at home," she said.

Waew said she had chosen to live as a vagrant and that she loved it, in spite of all the danger.

Another young vagrant said he too had fled problems at home. Mike, a friend of Waew, said constant chiding and physical punishment from his grandmother had driven him out.

"It was too much. I wanted to go where I would never have to see my grandma again.

"I was tired of her berating and insulting me," he said with indignation in his eyes.

But the life of the vagabond is not easy. Mike once attempted to hang himself after being ostracised by his group, whose members range from six to 30 years of age, and suffering violent punishment at the hands of the gang's leader.

"I was close to drawing my last breath when a friend saved me, cutting the rope that was around my neck. After the rope was cut I fell into the Chao Phya River and sank, but my friends rescued me in time," he said while inhaling glue.

The idea of looking forward to better times might seem absurd in a place like this, but in their way, young street urchins do have a sense of the future. They see it in their elders, some of whom have formed street families, such as that of 28-year-old Linchee Phodoay.

Linchee and her husband, who were homeless children more than a decade ago, decided to live together in the hope of making a better life.

After bedding down under bridges, near shrines and close to temples, they now live with their babies in a makeshift hut next to some railway tracks.

"Although we hope to settle down, our life is getting difficult, especially now that we have children," she said.

While her husband digs for earthworms and scavenges to support his family on a weekly income of between Bt200 and Bt300, Linchee takes care of her two boys, Jeed, 2, and eight-month-old Jard.

Linchee said she wanted to see her children lead a better life. She hoped they would go on to get an education and live in a proper house.

"We have given up drugs and try to save money. We have also asked officials to give us some money to start u p a trading stall," she said, adding that she considered herself lucky to have found a good husband.

Angkanurak Kraekkratoke, 29, a teacher who does volunteer work with homeless children, said the children lacked self-esteem as a result of family and social problems.

"I have been responsible for 50 street children and homeless families.

"In the past year only a few children have decided to return home and start a new life," he said.

Angkanurak said the existence of homeless children was a social problem that needed to be tackled.

While it is bad enough that these young people are living in such a poor environment, he said, it also leads to other social problems.

"Having children living on the street leads to crime, the spread of drug abuse and Aids, and unwanted pregnancies," he said. Street people are among those most at risk of contracting Aids, he said.

A survey of 399 street children aged from one and a half to 18 years showed that most left home because of family problems.

Many said their parents quarrelled or were separated, while others said their parents physically assaulted them.

Some respondents said they had left home following their friends' example.

Homeless children take refuge under bridges and in markets, public parks, bus terminals and temples, the survey reported.

Anan Siripassaraporn, director of the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration's Social Welfare Office, said the rising number of street children was a big problem to which families and authorities needed to pay greater attention.

"We have to find a way out of this life for the street children, and preventive measures must be worked out to deter children from making the decision to run away from home," he said.

Benjawan Somsin

THE NATION