Only 13: The True Story of Lon - Softcover

From a child runaway, to a top earner in Thailand's prolific sex industry, comes the story of a little girl in an impoverished land where girls aren't valuable enough to educate, yet are expected to become the primary income earners--responsible for the basic needs and welfare of their families. By the time Lon was 18, she had been responsible for the sole support of her family for five years. After suffering a childhood filled with beatings, blamed for the death of her father, and denied further education at the age of 12, she ran away and soon sold the only item of value she possessed--her young and supple body. The more she earned by agreeing to the most perverted and degrading acts demanded by her foreign customers, the more money her mother demanded. An abortion at 15, followed by a suicide attempt, hundreds of clients, and the discovery and loss of her first love-all before she was 18--are her story. Her relentless determination to save her sisters from the same fate gave her the strength to endure, and to tell the unknowing world how the "Daughters of Isaan" must honor their family obligations, regardless of the cost to themselves,