Childline Thailand: Tackling Abuse & Neglect, Offering Hope & Safety - Part 1 [S6.E68]

Greg interviews Ilya Smirnoff, the director of Childline
Thailand, an NGO dedicated to the rights of children in Thailand.
Ilya begins by explaining his early life as a monk, and how he
eventually left the monkhood and began doing charity work. The
basic genesis of Childline Thailand was to provide a single phone
number for children to call to gain access to information about
all the government services that are designed to help children in
trouble. The organization was able to get the simple phone number
'1387,' which is still their number today. Ilya notes that there
are actually an array of services of great variety, but that a
single access point makes it much easier for children to navigate
the system. 


Greg then asks Ilya to walk him through an example call, where a
child who has run away from home calls in. Ilya says the first
step is to assess whether the child is in immediate danger; if
so, Childline will immediately call the police so that they can
intervene and hopefully render assistance. If a child seems to
have a skillset that perhaps allows them to live for a while on
their own, Childline will do a further assessment to determine
the appropriate services for that child.


The fact that up to 70% of Thai children have a grandparent as
their primary caregiver, and the difficulties that can bring,
exacerbates the situation, making their biological parents harder
to track and them perhaps more willing to run away. The
generation gap between grandparents and children is often vast
and a communication breakdown often makes violence more
likely. 


Greg and Ilya continue to discuss the emotional difficulties of
the job, its great rewards, and complexities of navigating the
various services available in Thailand. Stay tuned for Part 2 of
the interview next week.


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