Addressing the sex trade in Thailand: Some lessons learned from NGOs, part I1

This is the first in a series of articles stemming from Project Hope International's month long visit to Thailand in June 2002. Project Hope International is a non-governmental organization based in greater Washington, D.C., which fights against child sexual exploitation and trafficking in girls and women into the international sex trade, specifically in Thailand and the United States. Thailand undeniably deals with serious problems of child sexual abuse and exploitation, as well as trafficking of children into the sex trade. However, the sex trade in Thailand today is not the same as it was thirty years ago. There has been a gradual decrease in the numbers of Thai women and girls in the sex trade, and an increase in the numbers of females from neighboring countries in the Mekong sub-region, as well as non-citizen, hill-tribe girls from Northern Thailand. The goals of our research trip to Thailand were threefold: first, we wanted to learn about the current problems of the sex trade and how they have changed over the last ten years; second, we wanted to visit the child welfare centers, and meet the most prominent activists in Thailand who are targeting the political, social, and economic problems surrounding the child sex trade in Thailand; and, finally, we wanted to be able to bring the information we acquired to dispel myths promulgated by many nearsighted NGOs who work on trafficking issues. In this article, problems of researching the sex trade in Thailand are discussed, and a brief overview of the current situation surrounding the trafficking of females into Thailand is provided. In examining the extraordinary efforts of non-governmental organizations and international organizations, we place these issues in the context of how Thailand fits into the broader international anti-trafficking movement. We then provide some information on the most recent court cases that have prosecuted sex offenders and pedophiles and look at some of the reasons why girls get involved in prostitution, albeit on an increasingly voluntary basis in certain regions. Finally, evidence is provided that the government and police are slowly committing themselves to fighting trafficking in females for sexual exploitation. Christina Arnold is an undergraduate in the School of Public Affairs at American University, majoring in Political Science and Justice. Ms. Arnold spent her childhood in Southeast Asia and as a result was drawn to a career in public service. She is the Executive Director of Project Hope International (PHI), a non-for-profit organization, dedicated to combating human trafficking in the U.S. and Thailand by partnering with organization that provide direct services to women and children in their receovery, repatriation, and reintegration processes. She won a $20,000 grant from the Rockefeller Foundation in 2001 for research on human trafficking in Thailand. Andrea M. Bertone is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Govenment and Politics at the University of Maryland, College Park, where she is writing her dissertation on the ways in which NGOs and international organizations cooperate in Thailand and Kosovo on anti-trafficking projects. She is also the Associate Director of Project Hope Internation, an NGO in Washington, D.C., working on issues of child prostitution and trafficking in females in Southeast Asia and the United States. She is the author of “International Political Economy and the Politics of Sex,” Gender Issues 18 (1). She is the co-editor of numerous publications published by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, D.C. We thank Sudarat Serewat of FACE for her invaluable help and time in Thailand.