A childhood in conflict
With more than 6,000 orphans across the strife-torn southern region, activists struggle to make education and rehabilitation effective
Child welfare activist Wannakanok Pohitaedaoh, 33, is always surrounded by children whose family life has been up-ended by southern violence. Through the Luukrieang foundation based in Yala’s Muang district, she provides shelter to about 20 “orphans” who have lost either one or both of their parents to the conflict in the South, now in its 11th year.
Ms Wannakanok also considers children whose parents are in jail, hiding or who cannot care for their offspring as result of the violence as orphans.
Luukrieang provides guidance and educational scholarships to about 200 children across the strife-torn region which includes Yala, Pattani, Narathiwat provinces and Songkhla’s Thepha, Na Thawi, Chana and Saba Yoi districts.
But there are 14 orphans who Ms Wannakanok holds more dearly. They are her own nieces and nephews, whose parents — her siblings — have lost their lives to the violence.
“My oldest brother was killed in 2004. He was a village chief and very active in the community.” He had four children.
“I lost the other two brothers in 2006. One was killed at the beginning of the year, one at the end.
“My sister was killed while riding a motorbike home in 2009.
“Altogether, they left behind four nieces and 10 nephews.”
COLLATERAL DAMAGE
When Ms Wannakanok started visiting widows in the remote villages of her home province of Yala, she found herself increasingly forming bonds with the children, who would mostly run around
or hide behind the house columns while their mothers welcomed visitors upstairs.
“If I visited 20 houses in a village, I could find 50 orphans whom I felt were no different than the orphans in my family,” she said.
“I spoke to them and they told me they cried alone a lot. They didn’t want to cry in front of their mothers because they didn’t want to see them hurt.”
Deep South Watch, a think tank based at Prince of Songkla University’s Pattani campus, said there have been 16,969 violent incidents in the South over the past 11 years since the conflict escalated. A total of 6,286 people have lost their lives and more than 11,000 have been injured in that time. More than 3,500 women became widows and the conflict has produced more than 6,000 orphans across the region. There are about 10 non-governmental organisations dealing with youth welfare in the region, and many of them coordinate their efforts.
In 2004, after four of Ms Wannakanok’s nephews and nieces became the first orphans in her family, she founded Luukrieang. Now, the foundation provides scholarships to more than 170 orphans aged between four and 23. Overall, almost 2,000 orphans have received scholarships from Luukrieang.
The activities the foundation offers are meant to provide healing and hope to the children affected by the conflict. Through monthly visits by staff, healing camps and field trips for children and job seminars for widows, Luukrieang is hoping to turn negative experiences into constructive motivations to help others in the South now and in the future.
LIVING WITH DEPRESSION
Last year, the Ministry of Social Development and Human Security raised concerns of child trauma in the South in its annual report. Children whose family members were incarcerated, missing, in hiding, detained under martial law or killed — either through extrajudicial killings or insurgency — were often found to be living in a state of depression and fear.
This rang true for Ms Wannakanok, who cited one example of extreme emotional distress. “There was a case where a husband and wife were shot dead in 2009. They had two daughters. The younger daughter is turning 15 now and we were told that she had become very possessive of her sister, to the point that she tried to kill herself once after finding out that she had a boyfriend.”
Ms Wannakanok explained that children who cannot comprehend the conflict often fail to find a substitute for their loss. “Children affected by violence are prone to extreme ways of thinking or problem solving. They are angry but they do not know at who or what. Inside, they are vulnerable.”
Mayu Chena, a human rights worker at the Nusantara Foundation, an organisation for protecting and developing youth in Yala, has also seen how violence suffered by families affects children.
Mr Mayu recalled a seven-year-old boy from Yala’s Betong district who found it difficult to suppress his rage and desire for revenge after his father was shot dead at home. “The bullets came from outside so the father of this boy protected his son by turning his back to the front door while holding him. He was killed and the boy was injured. The boy stayed with a relative and during our visit we learned that he always hid a small knife and sharpened it every day.”
EDUCATION FAILURE
Nusantara started as a student activist group looking into the welfare of widows in the South, before turning into an organisation caring for youth.
“Slowly, we started seeing widows who could not afford to take care of perhaps all four or five children she had after a husband was killed or sentenced to jail,” Mr Mayu said. “Many of them asked us to find a way to help take care of some of their children.”
In many cases children stay with other family members or relatives, but the situation can be overwhelming. “Two months ago, I visited a family in Rueso district, Narathiwat, and found a family with four children aged 15, 12, nine and three years old. Their father has been jailed on security charges and the mother had travelled to Malaysia to work. The children had been left with their grandmother and do not go to school. The oldest boy is now working as a security guard in Bangkok and sending money back to his siblings.”
The ministry’s report noted children affected by violence were often deprived of educational opportunities as a result of a family’s reduced income and/or higher expenses, and education is the greatest challenge for children’s rights workers in the South.
Mr Mayu said the early period after violent events was crucial to determining children’s futures. “Within the first one or two years after the violence, a child is most vulnerable, and if we cannot get them back on track or back to school within this period, we usually don’t succeed after that.”
Ms Wannakanok agrees that the major challenge lies in how to “get a child to go to school at all”.
Nusantara has operated since 2010 and now provides scholarships to 84 children from kindergarten to high school. It receives support from foreign Muslims who provide funds under their annual zakat (religious donation), sometimes in the form of cash, sometimes by pledging to provide education for a number of children.
“We have 24 staff, full-time and part-time,” Mr Mayu said. “Some of them are teachers in the schools across the South and we place the orphans in those schools, pay tuition fees and provide guidance. We are building a shelter now for orphans to stay in the future.”
RELIGION MATTERS
Both Luukrieang and Nusantara are operated by Muslims, who comprise 90% of the population in
We started seeing widows who could not afford to take care of all four or five children she had after a husband was killed or sentenced to jail MAYU CHENA NUSANTARA FOUNDATION
the South, and the organisations provide support and guidance for students to pursue education at tertiary or religious institutions. The South has educational options which are not available elsewhere. While many Muslims choose to follow the state system, they also have the choice of entering tadikah religious schools at the primary level and ponoh secondary schools. The ponoh schools give students rigorous training for careers in religion.
But as attacks and harassment continue to affect schools of both types, children suffer regardless of their religion or belief.
Mr Mayu has noticed children’s literacy worsening in the South, with the Yawi script — an alphabet that resembles Arabic traditionally used to write Malay — and Rumi — a Romanisation of Malay — being abandoned by young local Muslims nowadays. He said this was not so much a result of secularisation or modernisation, but rather the violence that threatens the existence of their cultural identity.
Pornpen Khongkachonkiet, t he director of the Cross Cultural Foundation (CrCF) rights group, said religious schools were often monitored and suspected of encouraging violence. “Many of them have been closed in recent years and children are angry in response.”
Rakchart Suwan, the leader of the Buddhist Network for Peace, an organisation founded in Yala in 2013, said the strife has created mistrust between Buddhists and Muslims, in contrast to the historical cultural assimilation the Malay Peninsula enjoyed. “Buddhists in the area tend to have feelings of fear and suspicion towards Muslims,” he said.
“In the future, we will organise camps where children of both faiths can join. We only have camps for Buddhist kids now because parents don’t usually let their kids join if there are Muslim kids.”
According to Deep South Watch, Muslim children are dying in greater numbers but the minority Buddhists are being killed at a disproportionately high rate. Of 80 child deaths between 2004 and 2014, 60 were Muslim and 20 were Buddhists. In 2014, 12 Muslim children were killed by the violence and two Buddhist children were killed.
The worst year for child casualties was 2007, when 21 were killed and 55 injured.
Since 2004, almost 180 public school teachers in the South have been killed. Every time a teacher is killed, a school is ordered closed for two days. The loss of the teachers and the interruptions are both obstacles to education.
The think tank said attacks on schools were usually retaliation for raids and extrajudicial killings. From 2004 to 2014, 204 public schools in the South were burned down.
LET CHILDREN BE CHILDREN
As well as bearing witness and falling victim to violence, children are also becoming part of the conflict itself. CrCF and Child Soldiers International released a report last year which showed children as young as 14 have been recruited by armed groups and used in southern hostilities.
According to the report, as of December 2013, children were present in the ranks of the dominant armed opposition groups, including the Patani Malay National Revolutionary Front (Barisan Revolusi Nasional Melayu Patani — BRN).
“Recruitment of under-18s into the ranks of the BRN appears to be voluntary, the result of community pressure and a sense of solidarity with the Malay-Muslim community combined with a sense of outrage at state repression and human rights violations,” the report said.
On the other hand, state security units have recruited defence volunteers and rangers from among members of the local community. It was recently announced the police force deployed in the South will recruit ponoh graduates, a policy some see as an attempt to build trust but others fear will only further fuel the conflict. As local youths become increasingly prone to unemployment due to the breakdown of education and the economy, they are pushed to either side of the conflict whether they want to be or not, Mr Mayu said.
“When youths fail to find jobs, they apply to the state defence units,” Mr Mayu said. “An 18-year-old could get 12,000 baht a month, which is the salary of the volunteer rangers. They don’t see it as volunteering, but as an income opportunity.”
Mr Mayu does not agree with the state arming youth, saying “once you are armed, you automatically become part of the conflict”. Ms Pornpen said security operations and youth welfare must be treated as two separate issues.
“Activists must strengthen child welfare by pushing for the state to have a duty to protect them. Children and violence should be separated entirely by not letting security units work with children, for example, by not allowing a military camp to be set up in a public school or by not having a military instructor in the tadika school.”
BRIGHTER DAYS
The NGOs working on youth welfare in the deep South have agreed not to discuss the politics or history of the conflict with the children. Their main task is to prepare them for the future.
Mr Mayu said Nusantara staff previously tried to explain the factors behind the southern conflict to the children, but were later advised in meetings and seminars that it would be better for the children to focus on rehabilitation instead.
Ms Wannakanok said she wants the children to grow like luukrieang, the seed of a local vegetable similar to sataw, to reach their maximum potential.
Now some of Ms Wannakanok’s nieces and nephews are in schools and doing great. Some have dropped out and are involved with drugs, another prevalent problem among youth in the South. Some travel to work in Malaysia to support themselves.
Ms Wannakanok emphasises that each child has to rely on themself to survive.
“I always tell every orphan I meet that their parents are in heaven now. You have to learn to live with this fact and learn to take care of yourself. You have to learn to survive.”
Children affected by violence are ... angry but they do not know at who or what WANNAKANOK POHITAEDAOH LUUKRIEANG FOUNDATION