Zhou Sen was the first one who approached me when I arrived in the village. The 13-year-old has an intellectual disability and studies at a special-needs school far from his home. He had just come back to spend the summer with his family. While we were talking, his mood changed and he touched his arm gingerly. "Don't worry," his parents told me. "He is doing that because he is in pain."
Zhou is one of the many victims affected by the lead contamination in Lower Klity Creek, a remote village in Thailand close to the Burma border. For more than 20 years its residents, who are mostly ethnic Karen, have been coping with the contamination caused by a nearby lead mine which has been dumping the wastewater into the main river flowing through the village. People dependent on the river for drinking and fishing have fallen sick; many have been diagnosed with lead poisoning. Although there are no medical reports recording many of these problems, villagers claim that more than ten people have died. The rest still suffer from symptoms such as aches, fatigue, dizziness, loss of memory, and numbness. Some children, like Zhou Sen, have been struck with developmental and mental disorders. Other villagers have been blinded.
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