Word Association (2024)

[tomsmith]

Khon Kaen, Thailand, Children Abductions

March 17, 2007

Khon Kaen, Nakham, Ubonrat Dam and surrounding village areas of North East Thailand have reported numerous abductions of children and some adults.

There is an active participation of over 100 persons involved in these abductions spread out over a large area as if filling a quota. Driving newer vehicles the abductors work in groups of two, five or more persons. They are abducting people all over North East Thailand and so it seems there is little or nothing being done to investigate or stop these abductions. Just about every village has accounts of abductions.

The motive behind these recent abductions is now clear to villagers because victim’s bodies have been returned and found in different locations and many of those were missing body parts such as eyes, heart, kidney and or liver. Recently local found bodies have had money placed on the bodies (5000 baht) and were missing eyes and heart.

Two twins were taken on their way to school with witnesses observing the abduction.

Husband and wife abducted, man was drugged by substance being sprayed into his face and he later awoke to see his wife lying next to him with her two eyes removed.

10 year old boy taken and later found covered in field with eyes and heart removed.

Witnesses have reported persons dressed in medical garb being seen making some of these abductions.

Two young men seen at local school dressed in police uniform trying to pretend to sell sun glasses and left quickly driving a van when teachers gathered to confront them

There have been abductions in Kaosaunkwang and one local victim minus an eye is fighting for his life there now at Kaosaunkwang Hospital.

Local schools are warning all children to stay in groups and not go out alone day or night.

Warning poster flyers have been put up warning people of abductions.

This is not the first time these abductions have happened. Crop planting or harvesting time is the preferred time of these abductions. While the farmers are out in the field harvesting their crops it is open season harvesting their children.

Police on occasions have been said to catch the perpetrators and to warn local villagers, “that for those caught there are 100 more coming”. There have been no news reports in Thailand’s media of these constant North Thailand kidnappings. Police this past week caught two doctors from Bangkok attempting to abduct some children but there are no news reports of this capture. Police tell the villagers about them and to be careful but no other information is forth coming.

As an interested person just being a casual observer of some of these local villagers I have seen the fear and heard the stories first hand. I have been present when village headmen broadcast warnings of local near by abductions.

The U.S. State Departments report on Thailand clearly states that inquiries to the police about missing persons may be met with harassment and danger.

As shocking unbelievable as this report may seem it is truthful and on further inquiries so it seems that the country side has been a favorite location for harvesting body parts on demand for some time now. As one long time resident said to her daughter in my presence, “Not again!”

Caution and warning; If you believe this or not protect your children and family if in this area.

Now on the internet there are paid gate keepers who sole job it is to discredit anything that is contrary to their employer’s interests, they may or may not work for international organizations or local Governments.

[swanks]

I suspect Martians myself!

A most interesting first post Sir.

Would you do us the favor of naming your source I wonder?

[ColPyat]

I suspect Martians myself!

A most interesting first post Sir.

Would you do us the favor of naming your source I wonder?

The tales of child abductions are well known, and happen not just in Isaarn.

I have no idea though if it is just urban legend, or if there is something behind, such as children sold to Malaysia, or for organ harvesting.

I would prefer to see evidence, but as long as i don't - i will be very cautious and won't let my son out of my eye.

[andook]

Sounds like a wind-up to me. If they were harvesting organs / abducting people, I would more likely to believe that Burmese / hill tribe people were being targeted. Less likely chance of being caught. Would the OP post some corroborating links, please?

[ColPyat]

Sounds like a wind-up to me. If they were harvesting organs / abducting people, I would more likely to believe that Burmese / hill tribe people were being targeted. Less likely chance of being caught. Would the OP post some corroborating links, please?

The tales of abductions are not a windup. People here in my neighborhood in Bangkok do speak constantly about that, and also my wifes relatives in the north. I would like to know very much if this is just a rumor floating around, or if it happens indeed. I guess most people with children would like to know.

[andook]

Sounds like a wind-up to me. If they were harvesting organs / abducting people, I would more likely to believe that Burmese / hill tribe people were being targeted. Less likely chance of being caught. Would the OP post some corroborating links, please?

The tales of abductions are not a windup. People here in my neighborhood in Bangkok do speak constantly about that, and also my wifes relatives in the north. I would like to know very much if this is just a rumor floating around, or if it happens indeed. I guess most people with children would like to know.

D@mn right......! Any other reports from trusted sources?

[Jet Gorgon]

You lazy sods!

I've heard of these incidents for years. If you need more proof, just google: organ theft thailand.

Watch over your precious families.

[swanks]

Sounds like a wind-up to me. If they were harvesting organs / abducting people, I would more likely to believe that Burmese / hill tribe people were being targeted. Less likely chance of being caught. Would the OP post some corroborating links, please?

The tales of abductions are not a windup. People here in my neighborhood in Bangkok do speak constantly about that, and also my wife's relatives in the north. I would like to know very much if this is just a rumor floating around, or if it happens indeed. I guess most people with children would like to know.

Er..

Organs for harvesting have to come from a mature adult unless the recipient is a child which would limit the number of marketing opportunities I think!

Come on chap! You know what the Thai's are like for there ghost stories. Do you think anyone would be able to gag the media if it was true?

My Thai wife also thinks 'Ripley's' in Pattaya has real ghosts now as they like the fear generated .

It's true !

Her friend told her !

Edited March 17, 2007 by swanks

[ColPyat]

Sounds like a wind-up to me. If they were harvesting organs / abducting people, I would more likely to believe that Burmese / hill tribe people were being targeted. Less likely chance of being caught. Would the OP post some corroborating links, please?

The tales of abductions are not a windup. People here in my neighborhood in Bangkok do speak constantly about that, and also my wife's relatives in the north. I would like to know very much if this is just a rumor floating around, or if it happens indeed. I guess most people with children would like to know.

Er..

Organs for harvesting have to come from a mature adult unless the recipient is a child which would limit the number of marketing opportunities I think!

Come on chap! You know what the Thai's are like for there ghost stories. Do you think anyone would be able to gag the media if it was true?

My Thai wife also thinks 'Ripley's' in Pattaya has real ghosts now as they like the fear generated .

It's true !

Her friend told her !

Well, chap, i have been here for a long time, and i have never heard so many tales of child abduction from sources independently from each other as there are going around right now. The last time these rumors (and incidents) went around was before my time, when my wife was a child, and several of her cousins were abducted indeed, and never found again.

I don't know about organ harvesting, but i do know of the tales of abductions for longer than this post was up here on the forum. Several weeks now people talk about the organized mafias and vans going around and abducting children. You may dismiss this as hilarious, but as i have a 2 year old son, i prefer to err on the side of caution until i get more information.

Edited March 17, 2007 by ColPyat

[Jet Gorgon]

For sure Colonel. If they don't use the children for organs, there are plenty of prostitution rings kidnapping them. Lords have mercy. Please take care of your little ones.

[ColPyat]

For sure Colonel. If they don't use the children for organs, there are plenty of prostitution rings kidnapping them. Lords have mercy. Please take care of your little ones.

I hope this is just a way for people to vent and compensate the political and social turmoil Thailand is facing now, and not that the tales are real. My wife though says that there are many increased reports on TV about the abductions.

[zaza]

What will they use the ripped eyes for?

I think we should better lock our kids

[undercover]

Kidnapping Brazilian street children for organs has been documented. During the military period (1964-1984) in Brazil doctors were sometimes given "quotas" of organs to be delivered to military hospitals, organs acquired by any means possible, including chemically inducing the signs of brain death in dying patients with minimal social support

In Buenos Aires, Argentina, blood, tissue, and organs are harvested from the bodies of mentally retarded, but physically healthy, inmates of asylums, many of them abandoned and unknown ("no names"). These patients, many of them naked and severely undernourished are subject to regular blood-lettings and cornea and tissue removal from the deceased, without consent, which is considered a legitimate practice justified by the cost to the state of maintaining these inmates.

They actually offer a money back guarantee that they will find you a liver or kidney for $120,000 US in either a living or dead person. All you have to do is travel to Thailand or the Philippines.

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_..._n15795060/pg_1

Sounds like its a global problem.

Edited March 17, 2007 by undercover

[Ricardo]

We certainly experienced this up here in Chiang Mai, several weeks ago, when a 'school bus' attempted to collect my friend's little girl, but was turned-away because it wasn't the regular one, or normal driver & bus-monitor.

Two other kids, in the same village, were taken, and haven't been heard from since.

I had assumed this was for prostitution or mutilation & begging, where I understand luk-kreung kids are especially targetted, and hadn't heard of the organ-harvesting option.

We've always been warned to watch out for kidnapping of attractive children, by family and villagers, so this isn't a spoof or anything new, sadly.

The people responsible will get theirs - in the next life.

[Wash]

I posted a new thread in the Bangkok Post, Forum, Child Abuse on the 15th of March and so far have had only one comment which in fact suggests a TV thread on the subject. That thread is relating to Roiet.

The part of this whole set of circumstances that astonishes me is that if it is true why is no one treating it as the Jon Bonet tragedy was treated? and, if it is not true why is someone in the press not doing something to quash it all. Surely the reporters are aware of the rumors, aren't they?

[bulmercke]

One-kidney shanty towns have sprung up on the peripheries of Manila and Thailand to service the needs of Saudi and Japanese transplant patients and, in recent years, a growing number of North Americans.

The trade in human organs (source: freerepublic.com)

Organ trafficking has become an international trade. A simple query on the Google search engine produces numerous Web sites professing to sell various body parts for up to $125 000 (Vaknin 2004.) The commodified kidney being the primary currency to date. Organ transplantation today is a significant and established part of therapeutic medicine, with good - and improving - survival rates for patients and transplanted organs. Organ transplants differ, however, from most other medical procedures in that they must be removed from the body of a living or dead human being (Foster, 1997:139). The spread of transplant capabilities has created a global scarcity of transplantable organs.

The scarcity of transplantable organs together with the legal principle that has gained legislative approval throughout most technologically advanced societies, that is that the removal of an organ from a living or deceased person for transplant purposes must be a free and altruistic act of generosity and the consequent criminalisation of the sale or purchase of organs for transplantation have given rise to a large-scale circumvention of laws governing human organ transplants, particularly by organised crime.

The criminalisation of the sale of purchase of organs for transplantation by nearly all Western nations, however, have resulted in a worldwide shortage of organs in the face of an escalating global demand that as Foster (1997:140) points out, has been exacerbated by advances in pharmacology - better immunosuppressant drugs, and by improved medical transplant procedures.

In the Middle East, for example, from the Gulf States to Israel, transplantable cadaver organs are extremely scarce owing to religious reservations, both Jewish and Islamic (about the ontological status of the brain dead donor), and to the elaborate religious protocol for the proper treatment and burial of the dead.

The global shortage of transplantable organs has networks of organized crime (and so called body mafia) have given rise to ambulatory organ buyers, itinerant kidney hunters, outlaw surgeons, medical technicians, makeshift transplant units, and underground laboratories.

For the last twenty years organized programs - transplant package tours - (transplant tourism) have carried affluent patients from Israel, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Kuwait initially to India for transplant and later to Turkey, Iran and Iraq and, most recently Russia, Romania and Moldova where kidney sellers are recruited - sometimes coercively - from army barracks, prisons, unemployment offices, flea markets, shopping malls and bars.

Transplant package tours are arranged in Europe, North America and Japan to take transplant patients to China where their surgery is arranged, with the complicity of Chinese doctors and surgeons to coincide with public executions that provide the primary source of high lucrative transplant organs. Condemned prisoners are reportedly intubated and surgically prepped for harvesting minutes before execution.

In India, trading a kidney for a dowry has become a common strategy for parents to arrange marriage for an otherwise economically disadvantaged daughter. One-kidney shanty towns have sprung up on the peripheries of Manila and Thailand to service the needs of Saudi and Japanese transplant patients and, in recent years, a growing number of North Americans.

Indeed, the poor man's and womens kidney has become the ultimate collateral against debt and destitution in many parts of the world. Scheper-Hughes (2003:199) sees the division the world into two distinctly different populations of organ suppliers and organ receivers as a kind of globalised apartheid medicine that privileges one class of patients, organ receivers, over another class or invisible and unrecognised non-patients, about whom almost nothing is known. Scheper-Hughes (2003:199) observes that in general, the circulation of kidneys follows the established routes of capital from North to South, from poorer to more affluent bodies, from black and brown bodies to white ones, and from female to males.

Women are rarely the recipients of purchased or purloined organs anywhere in the world. Willing seller and willing buyer apart, the number of people- especially children- who are tricked or coerced into parting with a kidney, or killed for their organs is growing. Malunga (2004) observes wryly that in South Africa, where there is a thriving illegal market for internal organs, “We already have enough problems with highjackers taking us to the cleaners for our vehicles. Now we will have to worry about our eyes or our kidneys or livers being sliced out for a quick transplant.”

There was a report in a South African newspaper, ThisDay, earlier this year of a nun at a Mozambican orphanage who had reported to the authorities that children were disappearing from the orphanage - in fact, were being kidnapped and killed for their organs. In the Pretoria News of Monday18 May 2004, a few lines appeared - Brazilian Catholic nun Maria Elilda dos Santos, who last year accused a South African farmer of child and human organ trafficking in Mozambiques Northern province, Nampula province, has left the country claiming Mozambican authorities pressured her to leave.Marina Rini of Terre des Hommes (cited by Tyler 2003:3) says that AWe know that gangs offer children for sale dead or alive. We can only conclude that the missing children die or are killed for their organs.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1322431/posts

[JacknDanny]

For sure Colonel. If they don't use the children for organs, there are plenty of prostitution rings kidnapping them. Lords have mercy. Please take care of your little ones.

I hope this is just a way for people to vent and compensate the political and social turmoil Thailand is facing now, and not that the tales are real. My wife though says that there are many increased reports on TV about the abductions.

You never miss an opportunity do you!!!!

Shame on you

[thaihome]

I posted a new thread in the Bangkok Post, Forum, Child Abuse on the 15th of March and so far have had only one comment which in fact suggests a TV thread on the subject. That thread is relating to Roiet.

The part of this whole set of circumstances that astonishes me is that if it is true why is no one treating it as the Jon Bonet tragedy was treated? and, if it is not true why is someone in the press not doing something to quash it all. Surely the reporters are aware of the rumors, aren't they?

Maybe the newspapers are not reporting it because among the hundreds abducted they have not been able to find one verifiable incident. If they or the police are able to do so and establish that hundreds are missing, I suspect that all hel_ will break loose.

I do not mean to minimize the danger; one should always keep a close eye on your children, whether in an upcountry village or streets of Bangkok (or your own home town).

TH

[ColPyat]

For sure Colonel. If they don't use the children for organs, there are plenty of prostitution rings kidnapping them. Lords have mercy. Please take care of your little ones.

I hope this is just a way for people to vent and compensate the political and social turmoil Thailand is facing now, and not that the tales are real. My wife though says that there are many increased reports on TV about the abductions.

You never miss an opportunity do you!!!!

Shame on you

Would you mind commenting on the thread topic and stop stalking me, please.

[bulmercke]

There's an abundance of evidence and numerous reports on the internet that deal with the disturbing issue of human body part trafficking in developing countries around the world and impoverished regions - and Thailand in this respect is probably no different than the rest.

The original post is, without doubt, bonafide and certainly deserves more attention and coverage.

However, in the main, the main stream media, and in particular the Thai media are reluctant to touch on this issue.

Here, just like everywhere else in the world, the media is strictly controlled and regulated and certain subjects remain taboo - for whatever reasons.

Quote: "Just like in other parts of Asia, Bangladeshi girls (under

18 years of age) from the villages are trafficked for

about 1,000 US dollars and sold to the sex industry. But

human trafficking is not confined to the sex industry.

Bangladeshi children (aged about 4 to 15 years) are also

largely trafficked:

a. To work in dirty, difficult and dangerous (3D) jobs

as bonded or forced labor,

b. To get their body parts, such as kidneys and other

internal organs,

c. To become "camel race jockeys" in the Arab Gulf

countries that expose them to serious physical injury"

(even death), misery and loneliness.

source: http://72.14.235.104/search?q=cache:OqlDYt...mp;client=opera

[Godders]

I, too, was sceptical about stories of mass child abductions (for whatever alleged purpose) in Thailand. Then my children came home from school (in cosmopolitan Cha Am, not rural Isaan) and told me that in future they could not go to school or be picked up by motor taxi or motor bike taxi, but only by their parents or family members able to prove their identity. This, we learned later, was because there had been a number of cases of child abduction in the area, by a group of adults using a van. Local Thais I spoke to (including my Thai partner) said the children were taken for a variety of reasons - as slave labour, enforced prostitutes or to be maimed and made to beg for money by the Thai equivalents of Fagin. The school verified that there had been incidents of child snatching and that they were stepping up security accordingly. There were local media accounts confirming that police were looking for a van-load of child snatchers, who had been caught in the act but escaped.

It is not difficult to understand why the Thai media, constantly harangued and harrassed by political masters who see newspapers and TV as simply an extension of their PR offices, stay virtually stum about these disturbing events. More worrying is the ignorance and complacency of falangs who live here but keep their heads conveniently buried in the sai.

Hopefully, responsible parents will react to this latest example of subterranean Thailand leaking to the surface by taking extra care with their offspring. Better safe than sorry.

[DP25]

Maybe the newspapers are not reporting it because among the hundreds abducted they have not been able to find one verifiable incident.

Yeap. The first linked article posted in this thread, uses as its source to 'prove' allegations of organ theft, a paper titled "Organ Stealing: Fact, Fantasy, Conspiracy, or Urban Legend?", which actually goes on to explain how none of these organ theft stories are real and instead sprout up as a result of the real economic and social turmoil people in developing countries are suffering from. Whether the first link is being intentionally dishonest, or the author just did not read the paper he sourced as 'proof', I don't know. But it's very interesting how these rumors spread and can take hold, as they play in to the stereotypes and fears held by both rich and poor.

[bulmercke]

A bit off topic but not too much - a few weeks back ITV aired a long documentary here in Thailand about the activities of organised gangs that routinely cruise around Isaan and elsewhere and pick up stray dogs (often with rightful owners) and transport them alive - illegally - to Vietnam where dog meat is more expensive than pork.

Apparently there are scores of these pick-ups with cages on the back operated by criminal gangs. It's an illegal export trade.

I've been here sixteen years and up until the time of this programme didn't imagine that such a thing could happen here.

Nothing surprises me now!

[Thai-Spy]

There's an abundance of evidence and numerous reports on the internet that deal with the disturbing issue of human body part trafficking in developing countries around the world and impoverished regions - and Thailand in this respect is probably no different than the rest.

The original post is, without doubt, bonafide and certainly deserves more attention and coverage.

However, in the main, the main stream media, and in particular the Thai media are reluctant to touch on this issue.

Here, just like everywhere else in the world, the media is strictly controlled and regulated and certain subjects remain taboo - for whatever reasons.

The original post is a near-verbatim copy of a "press release" apparently written by the same person and posted here:

http://www.i-newswire.com/pr93673.html

One can't help but wonder if some individual or group is fanning the flames of rumour and speculation (now approaching the level of a classic "moral panic" in many regards) only to later propose some form of commercial, legal or political solution to their own benefit.

To bring this into focus, has anyone DIRECT, FIRST-HAND EXPERIENCE of a child or adult having gone missing or having been killed under mysterious circumstances in the last 6 weeks? That is, a member of your own family, someone personally known to you, or someone residing in your own village?

Certainly no one wants a child to be at undue risk, but if these claims of mass abductions are the unsubstantiated product of gossip and imagination it can only lead to general hysteria, misplaced resources, unfounded accusations and worse.

Yes, think of the children. But keep the emphasis on both "think" AND "children".

[Isaanresting]

Catch them and hang them high.

[lomatopo]

The original "press release" seems to have come from this website, although the "reporter" also used the free distribution service at i-newswire.com where aparrently one could submit just about anything.

It seems obvious to me that this "story" is not being covered in the mainstream press because it is a figment of a wild and disturbed imagination. The original "press release" contains not a single confirmable event, no dates, no names, no attributable quotes. Honestly this story wouldn't even cut it on The Onion!

One does not randomly harvest organs in Issan on spec. Donors from third world locations are flown to the site of the recipient after having been carefully screened and type matched.

Ailing Americans Eagerly Await Summer Organ Harvest

[bkkmadness]

children were taken for a variety of reasons - as slave labour, enforced prostitutes or to be maimed and made to beg for money by the Thai equivalents of Fagin.

This is the reason I don't give money to beggars or buy flowers/sweets of children in bars, I will not partake in the child labour trade. Buy them a bit of food instead.

I just recently saw a sign up near the Cambodian border with a photo of children on it, with a big banner across it saying 'NOT FOR SALE!'.

Let's hope that one day people these people who deal in child labour are brought to harsh justice. I don't know if anyone remembers the story of the little girl that was sent out to work on the intersection of Asoke, she was crushed under a lorry wheel. I think her parents got off with a fine.

Really as foreigners in Thailand I think we should be doing more to highlight these problems and to get these poor kids of the streets.

[ColPyat]

It seems obvious to me that this "story" is not being covered in the mainstream press because it is a figment of a wild and disturbed imagination.

The problem is that the rumors have been going around Thailand since several weeks. They are not without precedent. 30 years ago, in a time of similar social and political turmoil abductions of children did happen.

I have no idea if these tales of abductions now are real or rumor. What though is disconcerting is that these tales go around, and we have no idea if they are rumor, or if they are based on fact, or a few real cases exaggerated.

Just now a couple of relatives from the north arrived, and the first subject was kids supposedly kidnapped in vans in their and a neighboring village. Rumor or fact? I don't know, as the relatives don't know the names of the kids, or who has seen the kidnappings.

Neighbors here in Bangkok talk about such kidnappings.

For us, and other parents of small children this is very disconcerting, for obvious reasons.

[lannarebirth]

We certainly experienced this up here in Chiang Mai, several weeks ago, when a 'school bus' attempted to collect my friend's little girl, but was turned-away because it wasn't the regular one, or normal driver & bus-monitor.

Two other kids, in the same village, were taken, and haven't been heard from since.

I had assumed this was for prostitution or mutilation & begging, where I understand luk-kreung kids are especially targetted, and hadn't heard of the organ-harvesting option.

We've always been warned to watch out for kidnapping of attractive children, by family and villagers, so this isn't a spoof or anything new, sadly.

The people responsible will get theirs - in the next life.

Ricardo,

Which village? Which School? TIA

[qualtrough]

I often read criticism on this site of Thais for their alleged inability to think critically, etc. Sad to see that there are apparently quite a few farangs similarly impaired.

To those who believe this malarky:

1. Do you really think that dozens if not hundreds of children have been kidnapped and left with organs missing in Thailand, and yet Thai and International papers feel fit not to report on that??

2. Does it ever occur to you that when someone at your school, or the police, or other officials here tell you that there have been kidnappings or attempts that they too may be basing that on the same rumors that everyone else is hearing??

Sure, keep an eye on your kids, but overreacting and believing and passing along every rumor you hear, no matter how far-fetched, is irresponsible and just plain stupid.

BTW, did you hear that Proctor and Gamble give a percentage of their money to satanic groups? I decided to strike this sentence. It was a bit of sarcasm, but in retrospect I think that some of the people who believe this organ harvesting idioacy might restart the P&G boycott.

P.S. The FreeRepublic web site is about as reliable a source of news as the Weekly World News.

Edited March 17, 2007 by qualtrough