This British girl on drugs charge in Laos...

[Ponders]

She's been in prison since August but she is 5 months pregnant???

A bit more information would be helpful

just an aside.... how do we know she was raped? Any chance she had a "relationship" with a guard in the hope that a baby would be the magic ticket back home?
Desperate times call for desperate measures...

I'm not saying that's the situation here, but a look at prior cases make the above scenario more credible than the story of a poor little girl being caught in a series of misfortunes.

Sorry if I sound uncompassionate. It's just cynicism borne from experience.

Absolutely agree too frosty and there is a child involved too. The thought of her being shot whilst pregnant or giving birth whilst in those conditions and what would happen to the child afterwards. It is all absolutely unimaginably cruel whatever she has or hasn't done.

20 is young. She may well have not fully understood what she was doing (if she was guilty), or of the possible consequnces, or could have been threatened into it.
We need to know more about it before we can judge either way.

When we travel to the far east, we check and double check our luggage, even when in "good hotels" - even if it has been locked, in our rooms, or in secure storage. When we leave for the airport, we never let it out of our sight until it is checked in. And we hope for the best that the baggage handlers are trustworthy.

All this we have been warned to do by our family and friends who live there.

Just wanted to make that point.

Good to know that the Customs Authority always gets it right . Not what I've heard from someone who has worked for them considerably longer than Aphrodite.

I think the big issue here is "in the UK we wouldn't do such things". Absolutely spot-on and rightly so, but this is not a case for the UK. It happened in Laos, and, no matter our opinions on their lack of human rights, the fact is these practices allegedly exist. And if you don't want to risk first-hand experience of such things then don't expose yourself to practices that involve law-breaking. Duh!
All the focus is on the tragedy of her circumstances and none on the possibility of her own cold, calculating, heartless disregard for OUR basic human rights to have less bloody drugs on the street.
It frustrates me to see the Laos authorities judged by our standards when we don't know the full story, just what has been leaked out by newshounds.
I don't absolve any country from basic standards of decency, but then I never plan to get myself in the situation to witness it first-hand in the first place. And no outrage on my part will change a thing in that case.
Blimey, you'd have thought stories like this would be a big enough deterrent but still people's greed gets the better of them.

Bottom line: No Crime=No Problem.

You're right, she may be innocent, but i seriously doubt it.

Sorry, sometimes my own cyncism saddens me, but you don't do a job like mine if you beleive every sad little tale people tell you.
I think I'd better butt out of this argument before I really offend someone (if I haven't already).

Great now I trust our customs authorities about as much as i trust our coppers.

The situation this girl is in is appalling.

For those who say about cultural differences, it's just not good enough. Cultural differences mean women get stoned to death for nothing in a lot of countries, have to undergo genital mutilation, have to be married off at age 12 etc etc.

Just because something is a "cultural difference" does not make it right.

It is not right for a foreign national to be locked up, with no legal representation, and the country they come from not to be told, nor any attempt to inform family. It is not right that they have to rely on family for food, and the possibility that they may be raped does not bear thinking about.

It is an appalling state of affairs and how anyone can think otherwise is beyond me.

She hasn't even been found guilty FFS.

This is disgusting. People make mistakes. Even if she did this knowing full well what she as involved in, that does not mean that had she been caught in the UK, served 8 years or whatever, she could come out and rebuild her life positively. She is 20 FFS, even in a 'well organised drug trafficking organisation' she would have been at the bottom of the ranks to have been the one carrying the drugs. A highly unlikely position to end up in through rational career choice.

Drugs are disgusting, but it does not mean that crimes should be commited against drug criminals. And imo rape, and (double?) murder are crimes wherever you are.

I agree with aphrodite

You go into a country and have to accept laws and punishment

Only here has rape been mentioned, no one else has. She could have entered into sex totally consentially

I don't believe in these planting stories, why would the drugs people risk losing large amounts of revenue and how would they get it to where they want it??

20 isn't a child, she is old enough to weigh up the risks

Sad story but the woman in question should have thought twice about what she was doing

I agree that people should abide by the law of that country.

I've no idea if she's guilty or not. if she is guilty I would have no problem with her serving a prison sentence in unpleasant conditions.

But I do have a problem with a girl barely out of her teensbeing denied access to proper legal representation and facing the prospect of her and her unborn child being turned into a human colander

So you agree with the treatment of women by various extreme groups around the world? If you leave your house without a man you are publically flogged or stoned to death? If a male relative commits a crime you may be gang raped because that is how traditionally punishments are meted out? No recourse to a fair trial because "that's how things work"?

Cultural differences my arse. How anyone can accept rank human rights abuses around the world with a glib "oh why don't they just follow the rules then" is beyond me.

scaredoflove the woman in this case has not been found guilty of any crime. Her case has not been heard yet.

As someone who has worked in Asia and been to Laos, and had problems with ignorant customs authorities upon returning, I want to say:

Many customs officers have never left the UK and have almost never been to third world countries. They have no idea what life is like for the people there. Maybe if they lived in these places for a while, they wouldn't act the big shots they think they are.

Laos, in particular, is very, very underdeveloped (and corrupt, and communist). Many simple things you'dtake for granted in the UK, such as basic health care, exist only for people who can afford them. Even this basic health care is nowhere near the standards of developed countries. I have been given medicine in Asia that has been banned from developed countries becase it causes heart attacks.... This was medicine for someone who could pay, just imagine if you're in a prison... the lowest place you can be.

Paperwork in any country like Laos takes a lot of time and from experience, can depend on who's doing the paperwork. There is a lot of corruption and it's hard to get things done.

Many backpackers are so young, they have no idea what they're doing and are not streetwise. In Laos, there is a town with a beach and it is against the law to walk around the town in your bikini top for example. Well, if you're 18, you don't think of something like this getting you in trouble. Laos has a completely different culture and is so different from the life you have at home.

Many of you might not understand this, but I'm trying to explain a bit.

I don't believe some countries laws are correct. I believe you need to abide by a countries laws. That isn't the same thing so don't twist what I said

According to the article, no legal representation until just before trial are within their laws, they don't have to make allowances just for a british person. Not informing our britain is out of order though

The woman (not girl) in question quite possibly chose to smuggle drugs into a country with harsh (unfair?) systems. She should face the consequences of that country

I'd also like to point out that in SE Asia, women do not have rights.

Some of the views expressed on this thread are quite breathtakingly vile. Aphrodite, sometimes your cynicism saddens you? Bloody hell, it depresses the feck out of me.

Tbh, the fact that she got herself in this situation - let's assume she did try to smuggle the heroin - and now finds herself pregnant in jail - let's accept the sex was consensual - hints that rather being some criminal mastermind she probably isn't that bright and can be easily manipulated.

In Laos 'bartering' sex for better food and access to medicines is common, since conditions are so damn poor, but according to Amnesty so is torture and rape. V corrupt system.

I haven't followed the story until now - is she an innocent tourist or a trafficker?

scaredoflove have you been to a country like Laos?

sorry, that should be in Laos prisons

scaredoflove, the problem is that in appalling regimes people need to challenge unfair and inhumane laws in order to try and improve them.

If everyone stuck to the letter of the law in the country they were in we probably still wouldn't have the vote.

The fact remains that we don't even know if this woman has broken the law. And if police planting evidence/miscarriage of justice etc can and do happen in the UK what makes you think that it's not happening with this girl in a country with a far less robust justice system?

Did that story imply at any time that she would be shot whilst pregnant?

No, it says:

"If this provokes a miscarriage, the Laotians should understand that they have caused the death of this baby."

I'm not sure how likely that is...

I wish we had more information.

That's what I thought, Ponders.

They haven't said that in so many words soupy.

However the alternative - give birth in prison having had no ante-natal care and with no attendants - then after the baby comes go out and be shot isn't exactly much of an improvement.

It's not one of these places where they have the prison children is it?