Child sex boom fueled by poverty

Deena,

Can you please provide a link or citation for the ILO statistic you mention in the last paragraph (14% of GDP in some Southeast Asia countries coming from sex touris)?

thanks!

The ILO report she cites is from 1998 - hardly up to date. The ILO report also suggests it's anywhere from 2-14 percent, too. But really, if you think about it, there is really no way to accurately tell this kind of thing. As if tourist would admit to frequenting a sex worker... It's all totally circumspect. No good reporter would rely on a 10 plus year report that is seriously questionable. (If you only knew how much the ILO mistreats its own workers, you wouldn't believe anything they put out).

And other reporting from this writer is similarly shoddy. Notice that she also spells Kanchanaburi wrong. What a joke that she got a grant to come to Thailand to report. Hope she had a nice vacation before trying to tear this place down

Thank you for your story. I am confused by the very high statistic that you report on sexual trafficking though. This does not match other contemporary reliable sources which have far far lower estimates. The 2009 Trafficking in Persons Report released this past June cites the International Labor Organization (ILO) for its numbers: they estimate "that there are at least 12.3 million adults and children in forced labor, bonded labor, and commercial sexual servitude at any given time. Of these victims, the ILO estimates that at least 1.39 million are victims of commercial sexual servitude, both transnational and within countries." (p. 8, 2009 TIP Report). In other words, approximately 11 out of 12 trafficking cases are NOT sexual. Can you please explain the huge divergence in these estimates? Both are affiliated with the UN, but the latter is the source used by the US State Dept.

gbm22, no such statistics will be forthcoming, you may rest assured. Sex tourism, even when you factor in the economic benefit of air travel and hotel stays, is utterly dwarfed by domestic consumption in the pay-for-play marketplace.

The rest of the article is largely a bunch of empty-headed nonsense by NGO representatives looking to justify their jobs. Sexual crimes against children in South-East Asia have only two causes: the corruption of the police who refuse to thoroughly investigate at best, or are tuning a profit at worst; the gullibility of a majority of Asian parents who think their children are going to legitimate jobs, and the venality of the minority who are knowingly selling their children into slavery.

As long as the Royal Thai Police remain the most corrupt body in the country (indistinguishable from a mafia in virtually all regards) nothing is going to change. How to force this change is open to debate, but the West certainly has enough leverage if it starts speaking the language of boycott. All that's lacking is the will.

MEN HAVE DONE N0THING BUT RUIN THE LIVES ON THIS PLANET AND RUINED THE PLANET...WHAT A SHAME...

Thank you for your article on child abuse and trafficking. We have information on child abuse and ritual abuse trafficking crimes at
http://ritualabuse.us

Clearly, the best, latest data available was used for this piece - all from reputable organisations... How would other commenters research this?

While I am sympathy for the author, relying on NGO data for accurate figures is risky, given their propensity for inflated numbers for their long term existence and private funding in these rough economic times. Nowever, the piece does have merit itself, and its a point well made.

I want to point something out to anyone who hasn't traveled in Thailand: child prostitution is not widely tolerated here. I've talked to other Americans who imagine Bangkok red-light districts where children are openly traded to foreigners.

It's not like that here. At all. In fact, people seeking child prostitution are more likely to visit neighboring countries where, sadly, endemic poverty forces more children into that horrific life.

Secondly, alleging that Thailand may draw as much as 14 percent of its GDP from sex tourism cannot be substantiated in any way.

Thailand typically draws roughly 6 percent of its GDP from tourism -- traditional or otherwise.

After hearing the author of this piece speak eloquently on Community Public Radio about her reporting, I am amused by all the undoubtedly Western males who continue to desperately deny the abuses she's documented here and elsewhere. Numerous scholars, including Siddharth Kara of Free the Slaves and Janis Foo of the Far Eastern Economic Review, have noted that poverty, the lack of social-safety nets and gaps in economic wealth are among the many factors that drive workers (often children) from the poorer nations in the Mekong region to seek better opportunities in neighboring Thailand. The relative disparities in wealth also creates huge incentives for human traffickers to operate in Thailand rather than Cambodia even if they recruit elsewhere. It should be no surprise that many undocumented/trafficked/"consenting" young women/men/children end up in Thailand's sex industry even if you don't see them in the obvious places anymore (Patpong District). As for accuracy of sources, I believe UNICEF and ECPAT-International, and local Thai NGOs more than I will ever believe these self-exculpating Western males. I am especially shocked by the unsubstantiated attack launched by Joel Gershon. His defensiveness suggests he is enjoying the sex industry as a Western male in Thailand (according to his website, he writes for the "Hollywood Reporter" so that gives us an idea about his journalistic integrity).

As a writer and academic who studies the relationship between prostitution and human trafficking and their affects on ethnic minority women and children in Thailand, I applaud Ms. Guzder. Keep up the commendable work! (Shocking news: I'm not a white male in Thailand, but a white female who has actually talked to young Thai women stuck in this industry).

This is very shoddy stuff. Look at this methodology for arriving at the number of sex-tourists in Thailand. "Start with a guess and multiply by an anecdote, and you arrive at a number of sex-tourists in-country on an average day." Jesus wept!

While your argue about the specifics of a statistic, it doesn't change the fact that thousands of children from Esarn are sold into sex slavery every year. And despite the handy convenience of the gender argument, WOMEN in Thailand, (mothers of those children and government officials and just plain folks in the street) continue to allow this to happen. There's poverty in lots of countries - Mexico, for example, and India - but the outright sale of children into the sex trade by their parents seems rather prevalent here. Can anyone adequately answer why that is the case?