FAQs
- What is Child Trafficking?
- Why Thailand?
- What are you planning to do with your experience in Thailand?
- Are your cupcakes US$5, or S$5?
- If your actual need is US$2,850, why was your Cupcake Project goal only US$1,500?
- Are you still receiving funds then?
- What happens if you raise more than you need?
Simply defined, child trafficking refers to the exploitation of children. Often they are exploited sexually, or used in forced labour.
UNICEF estimates that as many as 1.2 million children are being trafficked every year. In many cases, they are transported from their homes to other parts of their country, or to other countries. Movement, however, is not necessary under international law, for an incident to be defined as “trafficking.”
Trafficked children are often beaten, abused physically, sexually and verbally, drugged, starved and live in perpetual fear. This is done in order to coerce cooperation from them.
Today, children as young as five are offering grown men blow jobs so they can live another day without getting beaten up.
Today, somewhere in your neighbourhood, someone is abusing a child by surfing child pornography.
For more information, please visit ECPAT (End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes) and the Polaris Project.
Southeast Asia is the largest source of trafficked persons in the world. Oftentimes children in the rural villages of Northern Thailand, Cambodia, and Myanmar are given to relatives to work in the city, sold or kidnapped. These children often find themselves in the cities of Thailand or Cambodia.
Men from all over the world, including the US, Singapore and Australia, travel to places such as these, sometimes on sex tours… in the “Far East” where it’s so far from home that no one will ever hear of what they do there.
On a more personal level, I have developed a love for Thailand, the people and the language, from frequent travels to Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai before I came to the US for college.
3. What are you planning to do with your experience?
As you might have already read, I have spent some years since discovering this issue educating myself in various ways. I have been involved in awareness and policy change efforts, research, networking and have studied the different legal mechanisms, US and international, put in place to combat human trafficking.
This trip is especially significant to me because after years of just studying about the issue, I finally get to be on the ground and see for myself.
It is largely an educational trip, but for me the experience of seeing everything first-hand, hearing the stories, and the opportunity to network with others who care about the same issue means so much to me.
Apart from gaining insight into how policy translates into reality, what I gather from this trip will, I believe, be foundation to the work I will do in the future.
Fighting human trafficking and raising awareness about the issue are reasons for me to believe my job as a journalist is not a mistake. I know this is something I will continue to do for a long while, and so please know that I plan on taking your investment and taking it a lot father than just a trip to Thailand.
4. Are you cupcakes US$5, or S$5?
I like to keep it simple! If you’re in the US, they cost US$5, and if you’re in Singapore, they cost S$5! :)
5. If your actual need is US$2,850, why was your Cupcake Project goal only US$1,500?
Good question. I figured it would be a manageable goal for a humble project like cupcakes. And then you know, for the remaining funds I could just beg, borrow and steal. 
Turns out your support threw those ideas out of the window!
6. Are you still receiving funds then?
Yes! I would love to have your support! Support received will still be put towards payment of the program fees and airfare. For details on how you can contribute, please go to my Cupcake Project page. Thank you!
7. What happens if you raise more than you need?
I will give all funds raised beyond my need to the NGO that is organizing this trip, Prevent Human Trafficking.
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