T hey were 6, 7 and 9. They shuffled into the room and looked up. In their eyes, Daniel Walker saw nothing. The small boys seemed like shells. He had been out buying a bag the previous evening, shrugging off calls from men on the side of the street. Walker waved him off. Walker followed the man into a cafe and asked him more questions. He asked them if the boys knew what they were doing. They are very experienced.
Walker arranged to meet the man the following day. He joined him in a cab. Walker went inside with the man. Soon the boys were brought out.
Walker gave them some candy. He tried to talk to them, to coax them into some sort of answer. Then he turned back to the man. He told him that the house was a bit dirty. It did not really suit him. Could they arrange another place on another day? The man agreed. It was a deposit on the boys. The deal was done. Walker was wearing a covert camera. The footage of the transaction was given to police and the boys were eventually removed from the house. The man was a relative, it was later learned, and eventually he was prosecuted.
Now, almost 10 years on he is still working, still trying to ensure that these sorts of abuses don't continue.
W ithin a couple of hundred metres of where Walker is sitting there are all the extremes of the sex industry. There are women and children trafficked from all over the world. It is estimated that worldwide more than two million people are deceived and coerced into the commercial sex industry. They come from Issan, only a few hours north of Bangkok.
