Child Prostitution in Thailand

[Robert Charles Williamson]

Thailand has a reputation as a center for child sex tourism and
child prostitution. Although domestic and international
authorities have worked to protect children, the problem is
serious in many Southeast Asia countries.

Prostitution in Thailand dates back as far as the 14th century,
when it was legal and taxed by the government. In the late-18th
century and early-19th century, the demand for prostitutes
increased when the immigration of male Chinese increased
dramatically As Lim writes, "these women were essentially slaves,
who could be sold by their owners." The abolition of slavery in
1905 by King Rama V made forced prostitution illegal. Two of the
main contributing factors to child prostitution, religion and
cultural pressure, have been prominent in Thai culture for
centuries.
The Vietnam War gave new life to prostitution in Thailand and
allowed it to grow.[citation needed] Although the demand by
soldiers was for women rather than young girls, the sex industry
in Thailand became more developed than it ever had before.
[citation needed] There were five US bases in Thailand, which
housed up to 50,000 troops. Kathryn Farr makes clear that the
correlation between the number of troops in Vietnam and the number
of prostitutes in Thailand is impossible to ignore. "In 1957, an
estimated 20,000 prostitutes were working in Thailand. By 1964,
that number had grown to 400,000, and by 1972, when the United
States withdrew its main combat troops from Vietnam, there were at
least 500,000 working prostitutes in the country. From there on,
the Thai sex industry simply exploded".

According to ECPAT, "...due to the hidden nature of child sexual
abuse reliable figures are hard to compile....

One reviewer believes that, "...the magnitude of sex trafficking
cases is overestimated"

A journalist declares that, "Child prostitution in Thailand
involved 800,000 children under the age of sixteen in 2004." Her
next paragraph claims that, "Available figures estimate that
currently some 30,000 to 40,000 children, not including foreign
children, are exploited as prostitutes"

In Pattaya, another journalist claims that there are 2,000
underage prostitutes involved in prostitution there, with
approximately 900 minors coming to the area to work as prostitutes
every year.

Yet another study says that, in 1999, an estimated 80,000 women
and children were trafficked into the commercial sex industry in
Thailand, of whom 30 percent were under 18 years of age.