Thai Sex Industry : Causes, Effects, And Solutions

Human trafficking has been a controversial issue for many years. There are different types of trafficking, which helps makes it a widely diverse issue. In Thailand, traffickers rely on the poor desperate people of other countries as well as their own to fulfill their needs financially, physically, and emotionally. Thailand has various reasons why they use human trafficking; sex exploitation, forced labor, and obtaining their organs for an organ transplant. Sex exploitation has been used by mainly men for a long time. They choose both women and children to violate, sometimes even men. The prettier the woman is the more she is worth. All men, woman, and children could be forced into labor. This varies from what the owner wants from them. People can also choose to go and work for them because they think this is their only way of making money, but they usually do not see much of it. Finally, others purchase them just for their organs. There are very long waiting lists on some organs, by the time one comes about the person in need of the organ has already passed away. There are a number of steps and reasons that are involved in human trafficking. With all of these issues of; sex exploitations, and forced labor, and organ trafficking, the trafficked can become physically and mentally injured.

Women and children who are being sexually exploited are often found in the urban areas of Thailand, but even rural areas have a share of commercial sex workers (Lau, June 2008). The Thai society is extremely male dominated as men are considered superior to women and hold the government and societal power (Vejar & Quach, May 2013). Foreign investors have a great deal of power in Thailand as the country has become more dependent tourism and manufacturing rather than the traditional small farm economy (Geary & Meyer, June 1993).

The Global Alliance Against Trafficking in Women (GAATW) , is based out of Thailand. In 2003, Thailand enforced a law which focused on child sexual labor, and created an anti-corruption team to investigate reports of government officials involved in human trafficking . However, these laws did not clearly define what trafficking was or the appropriate punishment for the rimes committed. More recently however, the Thai government passed its anti-trafficking law, the Prevention and Suppression of Human Trafficking Act , which was enforced in 2007. What this law entails which previous legislation did not have was the, public recognition of sexual slavery, and the inclusion of male victims. In addition the penalties for infringing upon this law is much harsher than ever

The US State Department classifies China as a source, transit, and destination country for sex trafficking . Human trafficking of women and children for sexual exploitation is the second largest form of organized crime in Asia. China is a common thread in many of the complex trafficking networks working in Asia. The Human Trafficking Organization reports, China transits victims from all over the world to Thailand and Malaysia. In addition to transiting, China is a popular destination country, importing women throughout the region from Burma, Vietnam, Laos, Mongolia, Russia, and North Korea . Analyzing the attitude, culture, and opinion shifts through Chinese media will shed further light on the human trafficking phenomenon and look at the regional impact, due to China’s extensive involvement in sex trafficking.

It needs to be dealt with using criminal powers to investigate and prosecute offenders for trafficking and any other criminal activities in which they are involved. There are various organizations that are working to combat human trafficking. There is the International Labor Organization/ Mekong Sub-Regional Project to Combat Trafficking in Children and Women. The project has an office in Thailand. Also, the project works with different bodies of government, The Ministry of Labor and the Ministry of Social Development and Human Security. There is the International Organization for Migration which takes a multi-pronged approach to prevent trafficking mainly in the countries of origin and support the victims. Finally, there is the Global Rights Organization which is a human rights advocacy group. The group partners with local activists to promote women’s human rights and combat discrimination on the basis of race or ethnicity (Fisanick 180-183). Trafficked persons should be seen as victims of

Human trafficking is still lingering in South-East Asia as of today, and we do not expect to leave any time soon in the near future. The reality is that South-East Asian countries are mainly “affected by domestic trafficking or trafficking from the neighboring countries” (UNODC, 2014). There is an approximate “12 to 27 million people enslaved and exploited by human trafficking”, which this crime network brings in approximately “$30 billion dollars annually” (Collins, 2014). It is detected that today we see that (1) South-East Asia is still the origin area for victims of human trafficking around the world, (2) the vast majority of victims are females (either adults or underage girls) and children, (3) what’s surprising is that forced labor is well known among victims than sex exploitation, and (4) offenders are usually within the region (UNODC, 2014).

Throughout history human trafficking has been a plague upon the human race. Human trafficking is the unlawful migration of people to be used for forced labor or sexual exploitation, similar to slavery. It is believed that Thailand is the main source of human trafficking. This is an issue that affects everyone because innocent lives are endangered as well as Thailand’s neighboring countries, which are at the highest risk. This is a violation of human rights due to the fact it is dehumanizing to use a person as an object for personal gain and ignore their freedom of speech even if it is occurring outside of the United States.

According to the U.S. State Department, 600,000 to 800,000 people are trafficked across international borders every year, of which 80% are female and half are children. Human trafficking is the transporting of people between countries for exploitation. In the early 1900s, human trafficking began to become a political issue, but this is an issue that has been going on for centuries. Human trafficking is more than just the illegal trade of people, it also includes forcing victims into slavery and compelling victims to commit sexual acts, many times for the purpose of creating pornography. Human trafficking is an issue that needs to be addressed by many countries and organizations, but unfortunately this topic is often ignored to an extent. The

Sex trafficking has turned into a developing social issue where people have become very valuable . In a neo-liberal state where financial flexibility and liberalization are frameworks set up to make a supposedly more unhindered society of equivalent assets and opportunities, this has been acclimated to end up a benefit making industry by traffickers who utilize the false deceptions of better lives abroad to trap individuals who experience high levels of poverty.

Human trafficking is a real threat that can be come from many different aspects. Each year roughly 800,000 people are trafficked across international borders. About 80% of those people are women and children, especially girls. This is becoming a nationally recognized problem with 192 different countries participating. Human trafficking is a fast growing criminal enterprise with revenues totaling approximately 9.5 billion dollars per year. There is a high demand for human trafficking due to the cheap labor and sexual exploitation, meaning the victims make less than one per 15 hours of work. There are many different people working in this trade to keep the business running proficiently, such as organized crime, different types of government officials, and police officers.

Today's society has made connecting to potential victims easier. Most girls are recruited through social media for sex trafficking. The internet is making girls more vulnerable to others around the world without being aware of it. This is why the agency Thai Internet Crimes Against Children was formed. TICIAC responds to children trafficking through internet connections. Since this problem has formed, Thailand's government has enacted legislation that criminalizes the production and distribution of porngraphy. Children sex trafficking has expanded to a form of pornography for another way of distribution to potential buyers. Making it easier to make money.

Overall, child sex tourism still exists today in Thailand and many other regions. There are certain actions can be made by both some international organizations and NGOs to end child prostitution. Legal prosecutions should be more repressive, global awareness projects that made by ECPAT and UNICEF

In a small village consumed by poverty a man in a business suit shows up. He goes from family to family offering to buy children for a year’s worth of pay. He gets to one family with a young girl whose father sells her to feed his addiction for heroine. Scared and confused the girl is now forced into a brothel, sexually pleasing more than 20 men a day. Nearly five years later she is rescued only to lose her life to AIDS from unprotected sex. The human trafficking industry in Thailand has long been overlooked both internally and externally. Corruption, greed, foreign relations, economic pressure, and overall demand have fueled the trafficking industry in Thailand. Until the world and the Thai government make serious changes to the way they

The governments of the developing world encourage and utilize the sex trade industry as a progress strategy to repay millions of dollars of debt to international corporations. There are also economic incentives for the governments of both the exporting and importing countries to ignore the trafficking in women, and the governments are relatively uninterested in the women’s well-being.

Whilst numerous reports suggest a decline in sex trafficking of women and children in Cambodia, Cambodia still remains one of the largest destinations of sex tourism. Many methods have been implemented on both a national and community level in order to combat this criminal activity across the country; however none have been sufficient enough to entirely eradicate sex trafficking of persons in Cambodia. Thus a number of recommendations to combat these human rights violations have been listed, as follows: