"I feel like going to Thailand. It seems to be nicer than our hometown. It seems beautiful like in the TV dramas. It seems nice…Thailand should be good."

Lao women make up 51% of the country's population. Studies show that one third of their number have engaged in some sort of prostitution by the time they were 15 years old. Though many sordid stories circulate among the Lao-Thai border villages about the wretchedness with which these young women are treated, Lao women consider it the only way out of poverty, misery and deprivation. They look across the border to Thailand, where Thai media shows them the glamorous, emancipated status of women — the opportunities at the "better life" they all dream about. Their dreams turn into nightmares when they realize that all the opportunity they have left is to go into prostitution or work as domestic helpers. In the southern Lao province of Savannakhet, three girls share their stories about what they went through — all to provide a better life for their families and themselves.