Thai Rath Editorial

• Published: 6/03/2012 at 02:13 AM ... 

Rural poverty is one of the root causes of the flourishing sex industry in our country, which generates huge revenues for the influential people behind it.

MP Chuvit Kamolvisit, leader of Rak Prathet Thai Party, says the sex industry generates more than 200 billion baht a year, or almost 10% of the country's national budget. Up to one million Thai women are working in the flesh trade, and about 100,000 of them are younger than 18 years old, according to Mr Chuvit, who has urged Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra to take stern legal action against the powerful politicians, civil servants and businessmen who are behind it.

There is nothing new in the information provided by the Bangkok MP. Successive governments have failed to tackle this longstanding problem, which is exacerbated by the uneven distribution of income.

For more than 50 years, national policy-makers have given top priority to urban development and export-driven industries, while scant attention has been paid to rural development. The result is that, to escape the hardships at home, rural folk have continued to pour into Bangkok and other major cities in search of work.

If the uneven development continues, it will be hard for rural people to gain a higher standard of living. Rural women will continue to be drawn into the sex industry, causing more social and crime-related problems in the country.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/283034/thai-rath-editorial