Contemporary Issues in Thailand - Research Paper Example

Contemporary Issues in Thailand Introduction Even though Thailand has been recently experiencing stable economic performance, it still confronts growing social problems, which are, mainly, corruption, human trafficking, and AIDS. Thailand has started dealing with these major social problems. Strengthened protection policies have been implemented recently. The Center for Protection of Children’s Rights (CPCR) has been a major contributor in this course of action, collaborating directly with private organizations and government agencies in Thailand and other nations to reinforce policies and legal protection of trafficking and abuse victims (Hughes et al. 2011). This paper discusses these three aforementioned major social problems of Thailand and the country’s attempt to mitigate them. Corruption Corruption has prevailed in Thailand for a long time. This extremely detrimental problem has intensified markedly since the 1932 political transformation (Tarling 2006). Because a bureaucratic regime has dominated all the activities of citizens in the country government corruption has heightened in private and public organizations. Corruption has weakened the society of Thailand and brought about political disorder. This political turmoil that has seized the nation over the recent years is weakening its economic stability. As suspected parties keep on exchanging accusations of corrupt deeds, the necessity for a solution is apparent. Corruption is generally found in the junction between the government and business where claims for ‘facilitation payments’ are prevalent. Corruption is especially concentrated in several public agencies responsible for major financial operations, namely, the Police Department, the Transport Department, Tax and Customs Department, and the Land Department (Chongphermvatanaphol 2003). The primary root of corruption in the country is believed to be ‘money politics’, or the movement of resources within the political arena, arising from the considerable level of interconnectedness present between the political and business sectors (Tarling 2006). There are several causes of and solutions to corruption in Thailand. First, insufficient incomes encourage public servants or government officials to accept backhanders. Salaries in Thailand has normally been inadequate, hence it has been a practice to accept bribes (Tarling 2006). This makes the process of decision making completely unclear or obscure. Second, people’s low level of education results in a condition where citizens do not possess the required knowledge of speaking out their opinions. Third, immense economic gaps between social classes result in numerous problems. This brings about political flux, which then intensifies corruption such as vote buying. Fourth, absence of transparency makes it easy for officials to conceal their crooked activities. The political environment in Thailand has currently been characterized as overwrought (Chongphermvatanaphol 2003). A great deal of this strain is rooted in allegations and cases of corruption and the problem of government authority. Thailand is broadly regarded to be an economy welcoming to businesses and has for a number of years been capable of bidding good investment enticements to foreign businesses, such as tax exemptions, and favorable investment shield in comparison to several other nations in Southeast Asia. Yet, the investment environment of Thailand is still enduring a number of difficulties. Businesses regard corruption to be a major hindrance to business operations in Thailand, alongside undisclosed costs linked to incompetent government procedures, weakness of the government and its policies, and red tape (Tarling 2006). Still, the country has the legal structure to successfully eliminate corruption. The 2007 Constitution includes requirements for public information access (Kara 2008). The right to access information is usually granted to citizens and the privilege is used without restraints unless it concerns public protection and national security. The Thai government has currently vowed publicly to fight corruption within the sectors of contracting and procurement (Tarling 2006), like to enhance transparency in contract rewarding and bidding procedures. Human Trafficking The problem of human trafficking is complicated and includes a mixture of economic and cultural forces which reinforce the practice. Thailand is an excellent site for human traffickers in Southeast Asia. Human trafficking in the country is a billion dollar industry, which is more than that of the drug trade, as stated by the International Labor Organization (ILO) (Kara 2008). Complacent visa requirements and insufficiently subsidized law enforcement have usually reinforced the traffickers’ business. In order to maintain the continuous availability of the supply, crime organizations in Thailand also work with mafia groups from Burma, Japan, Russia, China, and others, according to the report of the Human Rights Watch (Kara 2008). Traffickers in Thailand are concentrated in the Northern part of the country, where economic development has brought about damages. Large numbers of the tribal inhabitants in this rugged area do not possess Thai citizenship, which makes them largely exposed and defenseless to trafficking (Hughes et al. 2011). For instance, 70% of the total number of households in Mae Sai had traded a daughter into sex slavery, according to the representatives of the 2001 Second World Congress against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children (Kara 2009, 162). According to Hughes and colleagues (2011), victims of trafficking normally are trained to abuse substances, especially rubber cement or drugs, so that they will carry out any tasks obligingly. However, with the proliferation of human trafficking in China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Burma, demand for girls and women from Thailand is assumed to have diminished (Hughes et al. 2011). As recently mentioned in The Bangkok Post, one fourth of the approximated 200,000 prostitutes in Thailand are assumed to originate from Burma (Hughes et al. 2011, para1). Yet frequently, identifying whether a victim has been coerced to perform prostitution or other job or decided to do so eagerly is an improbable undertaking. With very few employment opportunities in Laos, Cambodia, and Burma, the likelihood of transcending borders to provide ‘labor’ is an opportunity to make money for a household’s health, education, food, and clothes (Kara 2008). The scale of the human trafficking problem in Thailand mainly surpasses the resources of law enforcement, as reported by the 2003 Trafficking in Persons. The U.S. Department of Labor gave a substantial amount of money in 2002 to assist the country in fighting the commercial sexual abuse and trafficking of girls and women in Northern Thailand (Kara 2008). Even though legislation has been put into practice to enforce more rigid and harsher punishments on traffickers and provide better assistance to victims (Hughes et al. 2011), negligent initiatives to resolve the issue and corruption in Thailand have led to a deadlock. AIDS The AIDS epidemic in Thailand started roughly in 1985 and stretched quickly. In 2000, UNAIDS approximated that 2 percent of the total population of 15-50-year olds in Thailand have HIV (Wachter et al. 2002). The Northern Thai region is the most severely affected by the epidemic, which recorded tens of thousands of deaths from AIDS between 1990 and 1996. Even though the numbers has dropped in reaction to planned attempts to fight AIDS, fatalities will not subside in the future, and the impacts will be experienced for numerous years (Wachter et al. 2002). Just like in most Third World nations and contrary to Western countries, heterosexual contact is the greatest channel of AIDS transmission. Even though the use of intravenous drug contributes to the problem, the previous epidemic was stimulated mostly by commercial prostitution, with a few HIV-positive prostitutes transmitting the virus to a sizeable population of male customers. In Thailand, just like in many other developing countries, prevalent norms strengthen familial duties to parents, comprising obligations to support old family members in the form of cohabitation and allowances. A large portion of the older population in Thailand resides with or close to their grown-up children and are helped, assisted, and supported by them. Hence, the sickness and death of a supporting child probably involve present and potential losses of support and earnings (Wachter et al. 2002). Due to declining mortality and high fertility, majority of the living population of older Thais have quite a few existing children, and numerous have big families. However, for the elderly in Thailand, the lifetime possibilities of one’s children dying of AIDS are negligible (Wachter et al. 2002). But in the future these possibilities may intensify, causing problems to elderly care in the country. There are a small number of Third World nations where public policy has been successful in hampering the spread of AIDS, but Thailand is remarkable. A large-scale initiative in the 1990s that started to regulate HIV decreased the numbers of customers of commercial prostitutes, reduced the occurrence of sexually transmitted diseases considerably, enhanced the usage of condom, and attained significant decreases in the new HIV transmissions (Narain 2004). Thailand is a memento that victory can be relative. Its inclusive and politically subsidized prevention initiatives have dramatically reduced the prevalence of HIV from 1991 to 2003. However, a vast population of Thais is currently infected with HIV, and thousand Thais died from AIDS in 2009 (Narain 2004). Therefore, previous initiatives should be strengthened and new causes of infection should be dealt with. Conclusions The society of Thailand, throughout the recent decades of economic progress, has transformed from an agricultural foundation to practicing modernization, industrialization, and knowledge society, from diligent culture to consumerism, from its religious strength to materialism. The nation has been faced with a variety of social problems, like corruption, human trafficking, AIDS, substance abuse, crime, shifting values, and so on, which are forceful and intricate. The economic problem has brought about an abrupt loss of income for large numbers of Thais. Nevertheless, it has encouraged the people of Thailand to give importance to their society’s legacy and custom, and bring back several values like caring, helping, and supporting within family. References Chongphermvatanaphol, P. Corruption in Thailand: causes and cures. California State University, 2003. Hughes, D. et al. “Thailand” Factbook on Global Sexual Exploitation (accessed on September 2011): http://www.uri.edu/artsci/wms/hughes/thailand.htm Kara, S. Sex Trafficking: Inside the Business of Modern Slavery. New York: Columbia University Press, 2008. Narain, J. AIDS in Asia: The Challenge Continues. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications Inc., 2004. Tarling, N. Corruption and Good Governance in Asia. New York: Routledge, 2006. Wachter, K., J. Knodel, & M. Vanlandingham “Aids and the Elderly of Thailand: Projecting Familiar Impacts” Demography 39.1 (2002): 25+ Read More