International manhunts won’t solve Thailand’s paedophile problem
The social problem of child molestation is nothing new and it’s certainly not a phenomenon exclusive to Thailand, but the media coverage the subject has received recently has thrust it into a new realm.
When the world watched the manhunt for Christopher Paul Neil, Thai authorities did their bit and ended up parading the man before global media. That’s fine – a pat on the back for the officers involved, but foreign paedophiles don’t just happen upon children in the street and take them home – there are Thai people involved in this too.
It stands to reason that Thai authorities will now make a very public effort to conduct further background checks on foreign teachers, but why isn’t anybody looking at the bigger picture? The police should be going after the rings making money from the exploitation of children, as well as the paedophiles.
The fiasco surrounding John Mark Karr was supposed to incite stricter security checks on teachers in Thailand, but every time an incident occurs, it’s the same thing over again – until the next time.
Reuters recently reported that Thai police are now going after “dozens” of suspected paedophiles thought to be in Thailand. The Thai police, however, have had the names of suspected paedophiles for longer than the past few weeks, but it’s only now that the police have been kick-started in action.
“These are men, young and old, who love to have sex with little boys,” Major-General Wimol Powintara told Reuters as he flipped through a folder of photographs of 50 white males supplied by the German police about a year ago along with their names and dates of birth.
Here’s the clincher:
Wimol said these paedophiles were quite discreet when looking for children, hiring adult males or transvestites as go-betweens to lure children to their rooms by promising free computer games and easy money.
You can arrest one paedophile, but another will always be there. There has been not a single story about any Thai people involved in paedophile rings being arrested – not even the ladyboy who was with Christopher Paul Neil when he was arrested.
Briton Paul Cornelius Jones, 39, was arrested in Bangkok on Tuesday and police seized a computer allegedly containing photos of naked boys and girls. Jones, who works at a Bangkok school, has lived in Thailand for seven years. From the Press Association:
Pol Col Apichart Suribunya, head of Thailand’s liaison office for Interpol, said that police are considering background checks on the 1,000 foreign teachers already in Thailand.
There must be more than 1,000 teachers in Thailand, right? What have Thai police been doing all the other months (and years) when they knew there were paedophiles living in the country? Many of these men live here happily for years before being arrested.
In other cases, Alan Charles Mawson, 74, was arrested in Pattaya for abusing a boy and Orville Frank Mader, 54, was arrested as he arrived in Vancouver on charges of molesting a boy in Thailand.
When the police tackle drugs, they go after both the drug dealers and the drug users. I would never want to compare children to drugs, but a large proportion of the problem can be dealt with if you go after the suppliers. In this case, Thailand is happy to lay all the blame with the foreigners, conveniently overlooking the fact that the foreigners are here in the first place.
These public displays of solitary individuals caught in Thailand do not solve the problem.
November 4th, 2007 at 7:44 pm
You’re right. It doesn’t solve the problem. They need to start arresting the Thai people involved. And another thought: Most of those white guys coming over probably do not have criminal records. John Mark Karr didn’t… and as far as I know, neither did the other guy you mentioned whose name has already slipped my mind as I comment.
The solution is to let it be known that if you’re caught in Thailand bothering children, you’re toast.
November 4th, 2007 at 10:04 pm
What if the suppliers were parents of the victims? In some cases, despite it being rare, some kids were pimped by their old family to service those sexual perverts. Isn’t it nice?
This problem has been going on in this country for many years; it is nothing new, albeit, it is not extremely severe like it used to be in the past.
You are asking the same old question that many Thai parents incessantly question the people who have responsibility to check the background of foreign teachers in Thailand. Why exactly can’t they do their duty thoroughly? It is hardly not surprising to us that this problem keeps recurring. This sort of thing will happen again and again. The authorities will tackle this issue seriously when they feel they really want to do it, particularly, when there is a chance that they can present their faces to the media. The police occasionally go after the suppliers, but which one, between apprehending the paedophiles and going after the suppliers, do you think that is going to put the police into the limelight?
We do not lay all the blame on your kind; but how are we going to know that those foreigners coming to work with children are perverts. What if they have never convicted the crime of molesting children in their own country?
To tell you the truth, when I was a little kid, I used to think that all foreign men who come to Thailand, just came here to screw our children. Even though my attitude has changed a bit, I still have a really bad impression about foreign paedophiles. Why are there so many of them?
November 5th, 2007 at 1:30 am
Sexual abuse is such a big problem here in Thailand. I’ve met so many people, men and women who were abused as children. And no, not by farangs but by their own fathers, uncles, aunties etc. I’m glad to see the police do something about the farang paedophiles but I wish they would do more to protect children in general. Is there a hotline for abused children? a safe house in every city? Does every police man know how to react when a girl comes in with a complaint of being raped? How do teachers react to children who have been eather sexually abused of beaten? which authority can you go or call to if you witness abuse?
November 5th, 2007 at 2:05 am
The thing is Matt, you are looking at things from our English perspective.
The Thai police are not sophisticated or clean enough to deal effectively in people trafficking.
The police want to be seen to be dealing with the problem and pacifying the public. By far the easiest way to do that is by rounding up the foreigners. At least some of the scum get dealt with that way. It’s better than nothing being done.
November 5th, 2007 at 3:32 am
Yeah, you’re right actually. At least something is being done.
November 5th, 2007 at 3:57 am
Nail on the head. The police want to *seem* like they are doing something, and will create a huge circus of publicity in their quest to do so. But they are corrupt and lazy. They abide by the Thai work ethic:
1. do as little as possible
2. do it to as low a quality as can be gotten away with
3. concentrate on appearance not substance
4. remember that most Thais are too stupid to see through the sham and too idle to do something about it if they do.
Don’t forget that the police are generally believed to be the agents of much more crime than they ever solve.
Oh yes, and if possible, blame Johnny Foreigner for corrupting Thais.
I am surprised you seem surprised Matt. In any civilised country, the press would be launching investigations, but in Thailand, the above rules reign supreme.
November 5th, 2007 at 4:55 am
always remember: in thailand, appearance is everything. it doesn’t matter what’s going on beneath the surface, as long as the exterior has a fresh coat of paint. from a foreign perspective, the lack of sincerity truly is appalling, but in thailand that perspective counts for shit.
November 5th, 2007 at 5:51 am
I’m confident in Thailand tackling this problem more seriouly in the future.
Like mjk said: ‘appearance is everything’. And fortunately for Thailand media are becoming ubiquitous so public awareness is rising.
As a result Police can but dig further beneath the appearances.
November 5th, 2007 at 8:45 am
Thailand Weather: Hope springs eternal and to be fair, in a country where the people take a pride in what they do, this would be the case. But this is Thailand.
Refer to the rules appearing above, they are universal and inevitable.