In a crackdown on Tuesday night, Pattaya police arrested six migrants and rescued eight children after a Facebook page alerted them that a woman might be using a baby for begging.
Pol Capt Chainarong Chai-in, deputy inspector of Pattaya Police Station, led a team of police officers to join forces with officials from a homeless centre and a home for juveniles in Chon Buri to check the roads of Pattaya for beggars on Tuesday evening.
At 8.30pm, Chainarong announced that five migrant women and a migrant man were found begging along with eight children. The youngest child is just a year old.
The police inspector added that the six adults were fined and their DNA samples taken to compare with that of the children. If DNA tests show the children are not related to the migrants, then they will also face human-trafficking charges.
The crackdown was launched after Sunantha Saenthep, 29, posted a video clip of a woman, who appeared to be about 20 to 25 years old, carrying a one-month-old baby and begging on a Pattaya street.
Sunantha said she took the video clip and tried to talk to the woman to see if she could seek help for her, but the woman refused to talk and walked away. Sunantha raised the issue because she said she was concerned the woman might be using someone else’s baby to beg for money.
Officials also looked for the woman in the video clip, but failed to find her.
