Thailand Issues: Environment, Child Prostitution, and HIV/AIDS Research Paper

Introduction

Thailand is a country in south Asia with a kingdom constitutional monarchy government. Geographically, it is one of the biggest countries and ranked 50^th largest in the world. Its capital city is Bangkok and its main foreign exchange earner and flourishing sector is tourism.

The three main problems in Thailand are environmental issues, child prostitution, and HIV/AIDS.

Identification of the problem

Problem One – Environmental issues

The rigorous environmental growth in Thailand has led to various environmental problems. Currently, Thailand faces the problems of pollution, diminishing wildlife population, deforestations and the dumping of hazardous wastes (WWF, n.d.).

Deforestation has emerged as an environmental problem due to the increased desire to enlarge land for cultivation and other agricultural activities. This has reduced the land under forest cover from 53% in 1961 to 25% in 1998 (WWF, n.d.).

Overfishing: excessive fishing has led to diminishing fish population; this has been demonstrated by the fact that fishermen have recently had to spend several days in the sea to catch fish (WWF, n.d.).

Pollution: the quick industrial development and the resurging population growth have led to increased quantities of pollution. Also increased industrialization has led to industrial waste water and other hazardous wastes.

The increased demand for water has resulted in the depletion of Thai’s water resources and it has been ranked as the lowest in the Asian region for water per capita (WWF, n.d.).

Infrastructural development: the emergence of the coastal areas as favorite tourist destination and other urban developments has placed the coastal wetlands, coral reefs and sea grasses under threat and also raising the survival concerns of sea animals like whales and turtles (WWF, n.d.).

Problem Two – Child Prostitution

Child prostitution in Thailand is an illegal activity but people with commercial interest in this illegal act have continued to propagate the activity. It is a serious problem and considered the 21^st century form of human enslavement and it involves approximately 1 million young children who fall under the age of 16 years and the profit from the trade is estimated to be more than that of drug and weapon trade.

The problem is so severe because there is minimum health protection for prostitution. The prostitution, enslavement and exploitation of children represent sad story of human degradation.

The intensification of child prostitution is largely associated with the growing industry in Thailand, the relegated position of women in the Thai society due to Thai Buddhism and the culture of recreational sex.

The escalation of this problem is also largely due to racism, women from the indigenous groups who are associated with their economic vulnerabilities hence considered easy prey for recruitment into prostitution. It has also lately escalated due to the financial crisis and the rise in the standard of living (AGW, n.d.).

Problem Three – HIV/AIDS

HIV/AIDS case was first reported in Thai in the year 1984 and since then, gay, commercial sex workers and drug users have been widely affected by the disease. The factors that are largely associated to the rapid spread of HIV/AIDS is, among others low level of awareness and ignorance, limited use of condoms and the prevalence of prostitution activities.

Policies

Environmental issues

The government has contributed a lot in the reduction of pollution. It has aided in the reduction of levels of lead. The private sectors like the PPT and the Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) have also demonstrated interest in curbing environmental calamities.

The government have also played a critical role in enforcement of environmental laws and well established institutional capacity; the government has also assisted in increasing investment in prevention of pollution. The World Bank has also helped Thai in the implementation of national CFC phase out plan; these have been instrumental in reducing depletion of Ozone layer.

Environmental solutions failed because of the following reasons; first was due to the outdated institutions and policies, an example is the open access policy regarding natural resources which has often resulted in overuse of the environmental resources; another failure emanates from the lack of coordination of public relations on environment, this is because environmental campaigns only target individual citizens but ignores dissemination of information and coordination among government departments and agencies.

Also the failure of environmental issues is due to the lack of enforcement mechanisms. There have been environmental management laws in Thailand but only targeting resource use as opposed to environmental conservation. The environmental legislations that address environmental issues are weak and often lack implementation mechanisms.

Child Prostitution

To curb child prostitution, the government has passed legislations like measures in protection and suppression of trafficking in women and children act which gives the authorities the liberty to arrest and detain victims that are suspected of abating the illegal acts.

Also, those women who are found to be illegal immigrants and found to be indulging in prostitution activities are deported and their names are blacklisted from entering Thailand.

HIV/AIDS

HIV/AIDS prevention was made to be a priority when the Prime Minister Anand Panyarachun made the prevention and the control of HIV/AIDS a nationally priority and as such he initiated various steps aimed at curbing the spread of the pandemic.

First, the government moved the HIV/AIDS control program from the ministry of public health to the office of the Prime Minister and its budgetary allocation was increased in order to make its fighting sustainable. Secondly, the government initiated numerous information campaigns in order to sensitize the people; Anti-AIDS information was played on all radio and television stations and more so every learning institution was required to teach lessons on HIV/AIDS.

The government also repealed repressive laws like the one that required the reporting of names and addresses of those people who lived with the viruses, when they visited health institutions.

The campaign was unpopular among the influential tourist gurus who benefited from the industry of drug trafficking and child prostitution. Government programs helped a lot in the reduction of the cases of HIV/AIDS in Thailand (Avert, n.d.).

Section three- recommendation

Environmental issues

The government should formulate legislations that govern the management of the environment; this is due to the fact that majority of the environmental issues in Thailand are artificial e.g. the government may ban fishing for sometime, the government can also issue a policy that everybody should be planting a tree among others.

Child prostitution

The following are my recommendations as the solution to child prostitution:

1. Government and other stakeholders should develop measures that will help rescue women and children that are caught in the prostitution
2. The government should revise the laws that deal with the menace
3. Government and the stakeholders should address the economic calamities that drive women and the children into the vice.
4. The society should critically examine the culture and the traditions that are largely associated with the vice.
5. The fight against child prostitution should not be left entirely to the government but also other stakeholders like the non-governmental organizations should supplement government efforts.

HIV/AIDS

• Intensification of campaigns against HIV/AIDs by use of media tools like the radio and TV; it can also be achieved through holding of sensitization seminars and workshops.
• Making the teaching of HIV/AIDS lessons in schools mandatory to inculcate it into the minds of the younger generations.
• Government should formulate laws that prohibit the spread of HIV/AIDS
• Government should also work together with the brothels to make sure that they (brothels) do not become the only way of spreading the pandemic (WHO, n.d.).

Conclusion

Environmental issues, child prostitutions and HIV/AIDS pandemic being some of the problems that bedevil Thailand; this notwithstanding, they are not only unique to Thailand but are common to all the countries of the globe. Thailand government has failed in its efforts to address the problems.

Both issues are of grave concerns and still remain a threat to human life. The policies that are formulated by government are too weak and if not they lack proper implementation strategies. A policy for example that requires brothels to be offering safe sex or to make condoms available are definitely ambiguous in form and it appears like a public relations exercise.

The policies to curb the spread of HIV/AIDs and to prevent child prostitution appear just in paper and are meant to hoodwink the public. This is because the operatives of the tourism sector are the leaders in government who are keen to maintaining the status quo and to allow sex tourism to flourish, to them, formulating harsh laws to govern the menace will amount to their decrease in revenue from tourism in general and sex tourism in particular which has been linked to rapid spread of HIV/AIDS.

References

AGW. A Globe of Witness: child prostitution in Thailand. Web.

Avert. (2011). HIV/AIDS in Thailand. Web.

WHO. Health a key prosperity. Web.

WWF. Environmental problems in Thailand. Web.