Thailand is a major stop for those seeking child sex

Tillie Fong, Rocky Mountain News

Published August 17, 2006 at midnight

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Thailand has long been a destination for sex tourists and has become a major stop for those interested in child sex.

Although the country has passed a number of laws in recent years to suppress the trafficking of women and children for prostitution, sex tourism remains a booming business.

According to a 2003 report by the Australian newspaper The Age, the sex industry accounted for 3 percent of Thailand's economy, bringing in about $4.3 billion of business a year.

An estimated 2 million men travel to Thailand annually for sex, according to a 2005 Vancouver Sun report.

Solid figures for the number of sex workers in Thailand vary greatly. The Web site for the Tourism Authority of Thailand point to research by the Office of the National Commission on Women's Affairs in 2000 that indicated that between 22,500 and 40,000 girls under the age of 18 are engaged in commercial sex work.

But a 2004 story in The Nation reported that a study by Nitet Tinnakul, of Chulalongkorn University, estimated there were 2.8 million sex workers in Thailand between 1999 and 2002,.

Of that total, the study estimated 800,000 were boys and girls under the age of 18. There were about 60,000 sex service businesses, according to Tinnakul's study.

"If we judge by the rising number of sex service venues, I believe the number of prostitutes is much higher," Nitet told the magazine at the time.

The Vancouver Sun report estimated there were 200,000 prostitutes in Thailand under 16, but said that "recent crackdowns on child prostitution by Thai police in recent years have shifted the industry to other countries in Southeast Asia."

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