XPost: alt.global-warming, uk.politics.misc, rec.arts.tv   
   XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh.tv-show   
   From: rcwilliamson@zorkon.net   
      
   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.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)