Buying Slick Titles eBooks
June 10, 2025Trusty Tom’s Thailand Blog
June 10, 202519 November 2012 15:38
50% of profits from the sale of ‘Family Thais’ will go to the poor, the disadvantaged and the victims of injustice and corruption in Thailand.
Thailand is a country of rich and poor. Not many in between.
The rich earn millions. The poor live on incomes of less than 10,000 baht (£200) a month. From January 2013, the minimum wage in Thailand will be 300 baht (£6) a day, which adds up to 9,000 baht (£180) a month for a 12 hour day, 6 days a week. Even graduates only earn 13,000-20,000 baht (£260 – £400) a month.
The rich keep the poor on low wages because that way they get cheap labour and stay rich.
There is no social security in Thailand. Without help from outside, the family of a girl like Nok in the story would not be able to survive. Her father’s earnings of 9,000 baht a month as a motorcycle messenger would not feed, clothe and put a roof over the heads of Nok’s mother and three small children, never mind pay for school and medical bills and Nok’s food and personal requirements in prison. In Thailand female prisoners even have to buy their own prison uniforms.
In a corrupt society there is no compassion at official level. What humanity exists is at a personal level within the system.
A prosecutor will show no mercy at all unless that mercy is either bought or forced on him. Yet a femal prison officer wil treat inmates with as much kindness as the system allows.
