"My husband has been out of work for five months already," the young woman said.

Waew said she had to borrow money from other people every day to feed her family.

"Life is so difficult that I don't know how to put it into words," she said.

Waew is not the only teenage mother haunted by hunger and an uncertain future in Bangkok's crowded Khlong Toei community.

Seventeen-year-old Money had to leave school in grade 10 because she got pregnant last year.

Now in the seventh month of her pregnancy, Money knows that the Bt6,000 a month her boyfriend earns from selling SIM cards will hardly be enough once their baby is born.

"I must admit that I am worried," she said.

The Kluay Nam Thai Hospital located near the Khlong Toei community has registered 161 pregnant teenagers in the past five months.

"Some of them are addicted to alcohol, cigarettes and drugs," said hospital gynaecologist Kongsart Deeniran.

The hospital has seen a steady rise in the number of teenage pregnancies in recent years: 101 in 2004, 192 in 2005, and 207 in 2006.

All of them were younger than 18.

The increase has caused concern among social workers. Nittaya Phromporboonchuen, head of the Duang Prateep Foundation's community-development division, said many teenage mothers had no idea how to raise their children.

"When these children are left on their own, they risk being led astray," she said.

According to Nittaya, a survey conducted in the Khlong Toei community found that up to 2,000 young children there had been lured into the drug trade.

"Because of broken families or other family problems, so many children in this community have been trapped in a vicious circle of drugs, glue-sniffing, liquor addiction, methamphetamines and sexual promiscuity," she said.

Punnee Amornviputpanich

The Nation