 She was recruited to work in Japan by a wealthy neighbor, Patama Kosaka, an alleged childhood friend of Soimee's mother.Kosaka claimed she was married to a Japanese man and that she owned a Thai restaurant in Japan where she wanted Soimee to work as a waitress.The girl had no radio or television and little formal education, and therefore was not aware of the many cases in which women from Thailand were tricked or coerced into prostitution abroad.