The darker side of pickpockets.....

Thanks for this, Ken. Far too often these members of society are simply dismissed as crooks, though of course all people have a particular background or set of circumstances in their life that put them where they are. Petition girls are annoying, but we can choose to look a little deeper if we want to.

Other movies like slum dog millionaire and TAKEN show various forms of youth exploitation as well. This begging/theft thing is big in many Latin American countries as well. Every country probably has some horrible form of child exploitation. Thailand certainly does. I think the difference is how well the citizens try to combat this stuff. Civilized countries like the USA and Netherlands for example, really try hard to fight this junk and rescue minors.

There are all sorts of issues in 'civilized' U.S. and Netherlands - including human labor and prostitution trafficking - and those same issues affect children AND adults in Europe as well.

It's not that the issues do not exist in Western, 1st world nations, it's that more effort is given to combat it. Whether that is still enough or more should be done is open for debate for sure.

So sad , but I did know most of this, I also have read that the toddlers and babies are drugged so they will sit or doze listlessly while they adult handler begs, so that mother holding a sleeping toddler begging disgusts me, I saw this woman holding a " sleeping @ child of about 3-4 , she held the limp child on her lap with her hands out, several hours later this child was still " sleeping" baloney!

I did t notice the reference to Taken.

That was one silly movie.The sex trade does not kidnap tourists!!!

And what is the lighter side of pickpockets?

Lee,

"And what is the lighter side of pickpockets?"

I suppose a "lighter side" might be if they weren't being victimized and exploited by ruthless organized crime thugs, and got to keep the proceeds of their ill-gotten gains.

The lighter side of pickpockets? From Oliver, of course:

You've got to pick a pocket or two