Thailand Law Journal 2012 Fall Issue 1 Volume 15

IV. INTERNATIONAL REGULATIONS: A DISCUSSION

A. Criminal Justice System Regulations

Many of the interventions to end child prostitution have framed the problem in terms of its criminality by relying on solutions that originate in the criminal justice system. Also, because foreign involvement in the sex industry has been particularly emphasized, the majority of efforts to end child prostitution have focused on the demand side of the problem. These efforts have concentrated on both preventing foreigners from coming to Thailand to abuse children and prosecuting those that do. The apparent invulnerability of such men, the appalling nature of the crimes being committed, and the public outcry has led several countries to pass extraterritorial legislation enabling them to prosecute men in their home countries for offenses committed against children on foreign soil.⁷⁴ In 1994, Australia became the first country to introduce extraterritorial legislation, passing the Crimes (Child Sex Tourism) Amendment Act, which brought in penalties of up to seventeen years imprisonment for those convicted of sexual crimes against children overseas.⁷⁵ Norway, Germany, France, Belgium, New Zealand, and Sweden have passed similar laws⁷⁶ and obtained several successful prosecutions.⁷⁷

International law is also essential for fighting prostitution, especially when it happens across borders such as Thailand's. The push for changes in international legislation has happened alongside an increased willingness for tourist-receiving countries to prosecute foreign nationals under their own domestic child protection laws. There is evidence of more men being arrested and convicted through the criminal justice systems of the countries in which the crime occurred-not only in Thailand, but also in Kenya, Albania, and India.⁷⁸ In response to international pressure and the shame of developing a reputation as a pedophiles' playground, Thailand introduced new laws in 1996 designed to protect children. Among other benefits, these laws allowed for the prosecution of parents, procurers, and customers of child prostitutes so that anyone who had sex with a child under fifteen could be sent to jail for between two and six years, and the defendant could be imprisoned for up to three years if the child was between fifteen and eighteen years old. The laws apply to both foreign and local men.

It is hard to know what effect these legal changes have had on the behavior of men who are tempted to travel overseas to have sex with children or those who decide to buy sex from a child once there. Although prosecutions in both tourist-receiving and tourist-sending countries have increased, the numbers of men who continue to escape justice is not known. Nor is it clear if these men have stopped going to Thailand and now instead go to Vietnam and Cambodia where enforcement is less strict, or if they have stopped abusing children abroad all together.⁷⁹

There is certainly no room for complacency, and a trawl through the Pattaya Daily News (Pattaya is still one of the main destinations for sex tourism in Thailand) shows that the problem continues to be rife. In May 2008, a headline read, "British Man Arrested In Pattaya For Luring Underage Boy For Sexual Purposes," while in December of that year, the paper sounded positively weary: "Yet Another Foreign Gay Arrested In Pattaya With Underage Boys." The following May, it announced, "2
Swedish, 1 British Pedophiles Arrested in Pattaya."⁸⁰ Despite the risks and dangers, there obviously still remains a belief that it is possible to get away with the sexual abuse of children overseas in a way that it is impossible elsewhere else. Clearly, in some parts of Thailand, the message has still not been received, and it is safe to assume that while a handful of men have been arrested, there are plenty of others who have not and who continue to buy sex from children.⁸¹ Such cases show the gaps in the system which some men are still using to exploit children.

B. Other Initiatives to Help Child Prostitutes

More attention must be given to issues of police willingness and ability to track and arrest the clients of child prostitutes. The endemic poverty of several South East Asian countries makes some families willing to allow their sons and daughters to work as prostitutes.⁸² Compared to the low wages and conditions of many local brothels, selling sex to foreigners often brings in relatively high income and is not always seen as the worst form of exploitation.⁸³ While it may sound deeply crass to make this point, the children that I knew in Baan Nua were very vocal on this subject. Prostitution was not something they liked doing, but it gave them the chance to eat well, go to places they could not otherwise afford (such as amusement arcades or theme parks), and paradoxically, enjoy some aspects of a childhood otherwise denied to them. Compared with working in a
sweatshop, scavenging for rubbish, begging, or even being bossed around for low wages in a "respectable" job like hairdressing, this lifestyle was a better option in their minds.

Other initiatives aimed at helping children and their parents have had some success at providing financial alternatives to prostitution.⁸⁴ The government, with moral and financial support from members of the Thai royal family, set up a system of scholarships to provide money to families who keep their daughters in school until they are sixteen. This is expensive,
however, and has largely relied on private charities so far to supply the funds.⁸⁵ However, by emphasizing prevention and recognizing that economic hardship and family obligations are two of the many factors which contribute to child prostitution, schemes such as these make welcome steps away from a one-size-fits-all intervention that is based on the belief that all child prostitutes are victims of trafficking.

C. Deciding Where to Target Assistance

As more research is being done on child prostitutes in Thailand, intriguing patterns suggest the need for targeting assistance to particular girls who may be most vulnerable. Rende Taylor, who carried out ethnographic work with child prostitutes (as discussed previously) has found that the pattern of entry into prostitution is not uniform across families-first-born girls are less likely to enter sex work, while their younger sisters, especially last-born girls, are at much greater risk.⁸⁶ Because the oldest daughter in Thai families has long taken on heavy responsibilities around the house as the principle caregiver for younger siblings, her work is too valuable at home for her parents to allow her to sell sex. Rende Taylor makes the point that neither poverty nor lack of education per se affects the likelihood of girls becoming prostitutes, but family structures and the order in which girls are born are the most important conditions. These sorts of small-scale studies show where help is needed and where it would be best targeted.

In the case of Baan Nua, the children clearly needed particular forms of help. In the short term, they needed a source of income which would provide enough money for them to support their families but did not involve prostitution. However, such jobs were very hard to come by-the children were largely uneducated, and with such little schooling, they could not aspire to work in a shop or office. Options for girls included finding someone who would teach them hairdressing or dressmaking and working as that person's apprentice for several years. For boys, the choices included working on building sites or setting up small businesses. All these options were paid poorly, however, and required regular attendance of which many children had no experience. In order to transition successfully out of prostitution, these children needed intensive, long-term psychological and
educational help. Furthermore, this help needed to be aimed at their parents as well. Instead of criminalizing parents, and even imprisoning them, the welfare authorities needed to work with them, teaching them that prostitution was a dangerous option for their children, and showing them that other forms of work could be as lucrative. In the longer term, they also needed to understand that education could produce quantifiable benefits and secure their futures and that financial help was available for children who wished to stay in school.

74 MICHAEL HIRST, JURISDICTION AND THE AMBIT OF THE CRIMINAL LAW 268 (2003).

75 See C. Michael Hall, The Legal and Political Dimensions of Sex Tourism: The Case of Australia's Child Sex Tourism Legislation, in SEX TOURISM AND PROSTITUTION:
ASPECTS OF LEISURE, RECREATION, AND WORK, 87-96 (Martin Oppermann ed., 1998); NATIONAL CENTER FOR MISSING AND EXPLOITED CHILDREN, PROSTITUTION OF CHILDREN AND CHILD-SEX TOURISM: AN ANALYSIS OF DOMESTIC AND INTERNATIONAL RESPONSES, (1999); see generally JEREMY SEABROOK, NO HIDING PLACE: CHILD SEX TOURISM AND THE ROLE OF EXTRA-TERRITORIAL LEGISLATION (2000).

76 For a summary of the laws in each country see WORLD TOURISM ORGANISATION, PROTECTION OF CHILDREN IN TOURISM-LEGISLATION, http://www.unwto.org/protect children/campaign/en/legislation.php?op= &subop=7 (last visited Aug. 9, 2010).

77 Since 1997, there have been five convictions in the UK, at least sixty-five in the US, and twenty-eight in Australia. CHRISTINE BEDDOE, RETURN TO SENDER: BRITISH CHILD SEX OFFENDERS ABROAD-WHY MORE MUST BE DONE, 18 (2008), available at http://lastradainternational.org/1sidocs/Retumto Sender.pdf.

78 MONTGOMERY, supra note 25. Montgomery, supra note 31.

80 id

81 Id.

82 See generally FORDHAM, supra note 54.

83 MONTGOMERY, supra note 25; FORDHAM, supra note 54.

84 It is also worth noting a decline in the population of girls aged between ten and sixteen which has also led to a decline in the overall numbers of children entering prostitution from the Chiang Rai region. Simon Baker, The Changing Situation of Child Prostitution in Northern Thailand: A Study of Chiang Rai (Dec. 10, 2000), available at http://www.childtrafficking.com/Docs/baker_2000_changingsituation-child-prostitution-thailand 5.pdf.

85 Baker, supra note 84, points out, however, that there have been criticisms from community groups that not enough money is given to parents so that it is still more profitable for their daughters to enter prostitution. It is also unclear as to how successful these schemes are long term, whether they keep girls out of the sex trade permanently or simply for a few more years.

86 See generally Taylor, supra note 39.