negative proof

Gertie never made it across the border.

&

I’ve heard two different versions of her “origin story." It's hard to say which one is more accurate; both were told to me by people who ought to know the facts, who had no reason to bend the truth. Both are horrific, but then, people rarely end up at this shelter because of anything less.

In the first version, Gertie was trafficked over from Burma and put to work in a sweatshop, where a supervisor raped and impregnated her. She escaped and came to the shelter.

In the second version, she was raped by a Burmese general. She became pregnant, and her rapist ordered her to have an abortion. She refused on religious grounds. When the military threatened to kill her for her disobedience, she paid smugglers to get her into Thailand.

I don't know which story is true. Maybe they both are, to some degree. I hope not.

&

We know that she didn't make it out. We know that she got picked up by the Thai police. We know that it's been almost a month since the arrest, and no one has heard from her.

We don't know - possibly never will know - exactly where she is or what happened to her. But we can make an educated guess.

The Thai police are not exactly known for their stalwart defense of the people, especially refugees, who are not recognized under Thai law. Barring a miracle of God or nature, they would almost certainly have sent Gertie back to Burma.

In the best case scenario - the far-fetched daydream that allows me to get up in the morning - they kicked her across the border with relatively little fuss and she was allowed to return to her family. We’ll never see or hear from her again, but she's safe. As safe as you can be in Burma, anyway.

A far more likely possibility is that the Thai police turned her over to the Burmese authorities – the military – who are not known to spare the rod when dealing with "repatriated" refugees. Burmese prisons are nothing to joke about, even in the (frankly doubtful) event that she has not been raped or tortured.

Worse still, if the second version of her story is true, she would have been turned over to the same military she was running from when she came to Thailand. If they realized who she was, she would have been raped brutally and repeatedly, most likely tortured, and possibly killed.

&

I have tried to present this straightforwardly, sticking to the facts as I know them and building a likely chain of events, using what I've picked up from first-hand sources as well as reports from human rights groups, activists, journalists, and survivors. I have tried to think with my head, not my heart. I have tried not to jump to any conclusions.

Above all, I have tried not to associate the Gertie I'm writing about here with the Gertie I know. The friend who teases me and gossips with me, who takes my arm and falls asleep on my shoulder in the songthaew, who always alerts me when there is papaya salad to be had. The student who scolds me if I'm late, who taught me to write my name in Burmese, who reads aloud with slow determination and invariably says "a-n-d...and!" and "ans-wur" no matter how many times I correct her. The seamstress who has the aesthetic sense of a five-year-old, who loves bright colors and flower headbands and teddy bears patches, who's always presenting me with retina-scarring color combinations and asking if they're beautiful, as if I could say anything but "yes" to that hopeful face.

The mother who was traveling with her two-year-old daughter, a thoroughly spoiled mama's girl with a boy's haircut and a split thumb like her mother's.

&

What do I know, anyway? Maybe they let her off easy. Maybe she and Opal are back with her family. Maybe they're still sitting in a Thai prison. Maybe I've totally misjudged the situation. I'm no expert, you know. I could be wrong.


I could be wrong.