The Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) has launched a DVD to raise awareness of a project to prevent the trafficking of children in northern Thailand.

The DVD, called "Keep Girls Safe", uses the story of Nowarat to illustrate the issue of trafficking.

Two ADRA Thailand employees installing a water system in Ban Maenawang in the mid-1990s noticed Nowarat appeared to be the only 12-year-old girl in the village. Most, they learned, had been "recruited" to serve as sex workers in the cities of Thailand.

The employees asked Nowarat if she would prefer to attend school rather than look for work. She did, and ADRA had discovered a new need.

"Parents who live in these villages, like those anywhere else in the world, love their children," says Joy Butler, the director of women's ministries for the Adventist Church in the South Pacific. "But many are addicted to opium. They own little land. They struggle to feed their children. They certainly can't afford to educate them. They're so desperate for money they sell their children as sex slaves."

More than 115,000 females and 65,000 males worked in sex venues in Thailand in 2002, according to figures from the Ministry of Public Health. The country's Office of National Statistics estimated at the time that one quarter of these sex workers were underage.

"These children are living in horror," says Gail Ormsby, ADRA Australia's director of marketing and public relations. "Many return to their villages with HIV/AIDS. They basically come home to die."

ADRA Australia has donated AUD155,000 to the Keep Girls Safe project. Almost one-third of this came from one donor, who also gave AUD109,000 for community development in the so-called Thai hill tribes. ADRA will use the money to build a women's refuge.

ADRA Thailand, in its role as the implementing agency, has now helped Nowarat and 83 other children and teenagers who live in the mountains in the north of Thailand attend school rather than serving as sex workers. "They now have hope and a future," says Mrs Butler.

The DVD runs for about five minutes. It is available free of charge. Contact ADRA Australia by email adra.info@adra.org.au to receive a copy.

ADRA is present in more than 120 countries providing individual and community development and disaster relief without regard to political or religious association, age or ethnicity. [Editor: Brenton Stacey for ANN-A/APD]