STEVENS POINT — In a yellow house in the center of the UW-Stevens Point campus, a dark-haired woman curls up on the couch during winter break.

Srinuan “Aor” Saokhamnuan wears black skinny jeans, a UW-Stevens Point sweatshirt and her hair pulled back fashionably with bangs, smiling widely as she talks about the math class she will start this week.

It’s a world away from the thatch-roof, plywood hut in Thailand where she was born.

There, she lived in the shadows as a refugee — not allowed to go to college, work legally or travel. She does not have a birth certificate. She is not recognized as a Thai citizen because her parents had fled Myanmar, leaving her with few rights and vulnerable to exploitation in the sex trade.

Saokhamnuan, 21, is one of the first beneficiaries of the Thailand Project, started by two UW-Stevens Point undergraduates to bring “stateless” people to study at the university.

Statelessness, or lack of citizenship, is a problem that affects an estimated 2 million to 3.5 million people in Thailand, according to Refugees International, and at least 12 million people worldwide. Without anywhere else to turn, stateless women often are lured into prostitution.

UW-Stevens Point students Joseph Quinnell and Susan Perri beat long odds and persuaded the Thai government to allow Saokhamnuan and another woman, Fongtip Boonsri, to study here.

“I thought, I can’t go. I don’t have anything ... even if I want to travel to another country or city, I can’t,” Saokhamnuan said. “So after I came here, I feel like this (is) my dream. And everything (is) fantastic. I have education.”

Thailand visit spurred idea

Quinnell, a photographer, got the idea for the project when he traveled to Thailand in the summer of 2005 to document child prostitution and human trafficking.

While there, he visited a school founded by Sompop Jantraka, a two-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee, in northern Thailand. The school is meant to provide an alternative to sex work for stateless girls, but it cannot change their status.

“They understood that even after their education was complete, they would never be able to go on to a university,” Quinnell said. “They wouldn’t be able to get a job where they wouldn’t be paid under the table. They couldn’t leave their district. I met hundreds of children who weren’t allowed to dream of any future.”

In Thailand, lack of citizenship is the single greatest risk factor for a girl or woman to be sold or lured into prostitution, according to the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization.

Less than a week into his trip, a woman called out to Quinnell from the doorway of her shop to ask if he wanted “boom-boom” — sex — with a smiling girl sitting next to her for $15.

The girl looked to be about 12 years old, Quinnell recalled. He was appalled.

Quinnell, who said he was abused as a child growing up in Wisconsin Rapids, felt that he needed to do something for the girls at the school.

Families fled Myanmar

Both Saokhamnuan and Boonsri enrolled at Jantraka’s school to avoid being sold as sex slaves.

They grew up in Thailand’s northernmost province of Chiang Rai.

Their families come from Myanmar’s Shan hill tribe, a group that has been persecuted by the Myanmar government, according to Refugees International. The Shan and other tribes fled to Thailand in the 1980s. The government there allowed them to stay, but restricted them to a specific district and did not grant them refugee status, citizenship, or government identification.

Unable to work in factories without legal documents, their parents farmed or sold goods.

Soon after Boonsri left for Jantraka’s school at age 13, a man approached her mother asking if Boonsri wanted to work for him. It was unclear if that meant work in a restaurant or as a prostitute, but she didn’t want to find out.

“My mom knew if (I went with the man), maybe I come back and maybe not,” she said. Boonsri told her mother, “No, I want to study.”

Quinnell’s efforts pay off

It took more than three years for Quinnell to gain approval from Thai authorities to bring the women to UW-Stevens Point. Experts say it was quite a feat. “It’s extremely rare that stateless people can travel for educational purposes,” said Maureen Lynch, an expert on statelessness with Refugess International.

He returned to Thailand during winter breaks and summer, talking to the U.S. consulate, finding the right Thai officials to approach and raising more than $50,000 for two scholarships in campaigns on the Stevens Point campus. He recruited Perri to help.

Saokhamnuan and Boonsri were working as volunteers at Jantraka’s school when Quinnell told them they had been chosen for the scholarships.

With backing from Jantraka and the U.S. consulate, Quinnell and Perri petitioned the Thai government to allow the women to study in the U.S. Boonsri was granted citizenship and permission to travel; Saokhamnuan, just a travel visa.

The two women then had just one day to pack and say goodbye to their families and friends before getting on an airplane for the  journey to Wisconsin.

Challenges remain for pair

They arrived at the bucolic Central Wisconsin Airport in August 2008. Neither spoke English.

With three semesters of intensive English courses complete, the two women are now ready for their first college-level academic courses. The semester starts Monday.

But while Boonsri has citizenship and the freedom to travel, Saokhamnuan’s case is unresolved.

Her travel visa, which was already renewed once, cannot be renewed again and will expire this summer. Without it, she can’t remain at UW-Stevens Point.

Quinnell, Perri, Boonsri and Saokhamnuan spent their winter break in Thailand trying to get Saokhamnuan a birth certificate, which is needed for citizenship. But proving her birth without any documentation is a difficult task.

“Usually governments are deaf and dumb to any plea about how this will destroy someone’s life,” said Julia Harrington, senior legal officer for the Equality and Citizenship program in the Open Society Justice Initiative, a human rights advocacy group. “They don’t care.”

Lawyers from the University of Bangkok, who are helping with Saokhamnuan’s case, visited her village this month to gather witnesses who can attest to her birth and early childhood in Thailand. Authorities will interview those witnesses this week.

If all goes well, Saokhamnuan’s birthplace will be officially recognized as Thailand and her citizenship application will move forward.

If not, Quinnell said, they will have to try again.

HOW TO HELP

For more information or to donate to the Thailand Project, go to www.TheThailandProject.org. Contact Joseph Quinnell at 715-213-3221.