Not sure why you bumped this CZroe, but you got it right. I just read a follow-up article about this a couple of days ago.
She survived the tsunami, separated from all of her family members (having no idea whether or not they also survived). She was soon picked up by a lady who told her that her parents and all other families are dead, and she took her to another city more than 150 miles away and forced her to beg on the streets for a living.
She had to endure some physical abuse from her 'stepmother' if she didn't bring enough money from begging. When she was old enough, sometimes she chose to just stay on the streets for two or three days rather than go home and get abused ("I used to get beaten by a block", she said). She tried to runaway a few times during the years, but always got caught, ended up being beaten again.
Finally she was brave enough to go against her 'stepmother' will (teenage angst probably helped in this case), refused to beg anymore, and she was thrown out of the house. She didn't know where to go because she thought her families are all gone, but she still remembers the names of the village and some known/respected people of this area where she used to live and took a chance to just go there by herself and visit (remember that this is an area completely destroyed by the tsunami, so there's no telling what it'd look like now). Just her luck, she found the village rebuilt, the people she remembered are still there, and surprisingly her parents as well.
I couldn't find a link to an english version of this article, but that's pretty much the summary of it.
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