The other night while sitting across the street from a loud Soi Six bar, waiting for a friend who was having a drink, I observed a crippled girl dragging her obviously paralyzed body through the street gutter by her gloved hands. She was pushing a small basket containing gum in hopes of receiving sympathetic offerings. Being quite touched by the sight of this poor girl, I approached her three times, each time giving her more money...about ฿600 in total. I watched her for about 30 minutes and could not believe how few people gave her anything. During that time I noticed one farang and two or three bar girls contributing. This experience was very upsetting to me and kept me awake all night wondering how I possibly could help her. The following morning I relayed this story to my Thai friend who told me that she is a slave to scum-bags who live off of her. She said that they take all of the money and only provide enough food to keep her alive. I can't get this out of my mind and I'm wondering if anyone has any ideas on how to go about stopping this sick practice? My friend said that this is probably mafia related and the police will do nothing about it. If the police are afraid or involved, perhaps Prime Minister Prayut can get some military men to rescue people from this horrendous, corrupt practice.     

Don't donate. Her "keepers" will get most of it and more then likely she is not even thai but cambodian.

 

There is one classic guy on lower Sukhumvit BKK who only ever comes out in the rain dragging his body through the muck. Easy he makes around 1k baht a day.. Tourists can't help themselves

 

 

 

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I guess there is no way to stop this?

 

You must be a new kid to the block... those kind of 'gut wrenching' sights are well known around pattaya and elsewhere in Thailand, theses kids/adults/babies are mostly, if not all cambodian or burmese brought in by a mafia that specialised in beggars and panhandlers, so if you want to donate, donate, but don't feel sorry for them...

5 hours ago, madmen said:

Don't donate. Her "keepers" will get most of it and more then likely she is not even thai but cambodian.

 

There is one classic guy on lower Sukhumvit BKK who only ever comes out in the rain dragging his body through the muck. Easy he makes around 1k baht a day.. Tourists can't help 

Correct, it's a despicable business and shouldn't be supported. Good profits only lead to more unfortunates being shipped in from the provinces or neighbouring countries to crawl through the gutters and be exploited. The Sukhumvit example you mention is commonly referred to as the slug, but in fact there are several duplicates of him around town on any given day, one in Pratunam area, another around Silom. I once saw the Lower Sukhumvit guy check his surroundings, then push himself up and extract a pair of regular crutches from behind the wall in front of Chuvit Garden - he then hopped in the back of a car and was driven away.

 

These horrific practices are long established in India and other places, where children are sometimes deliberately maimed in early life to ensure their usefulness a few years later. Sadly, donating only encourages more of the same. 

Moved to Pattaya forum.