Seven men, reportedly drug addicts, were arrested in the operation and fourteen children were taken into protective care. This week, Thai police and anti-human trafficking squad members staged a series of coordinated raids which involved locking down a hotel in the centre of Bangkok and executing warrants to search six other locations.
The target of the operation was a crime gang running a growing child prostitution ring in the city. The people operating the ring were running it not at the behest of senior crime lords but instead in order to make money to pay for their increasingly demanding drug habits. Police Major General Worawat Watnakornbancha, the head of the Anti Human Trafficking Division, gave the media some insight into the nightmare world that police this week were tasked at bringing down.
Police revealed after the raid that, in all, fourteen boys and girls ranging in age from 10 to 16 were being regularly hired out for sex. The gang also had a line in normal prostitution with the girlfriends of the men employed in the prostitution trade to rake in more funds. The proximity of the location to a train station and transit hub in Bangkok made for brisk business. He indicated that the gang will also be questioned by officers of the narcotics crime division. Since the Thai government introduced a crackdown on human trafficking some years ago including an effective crackdown also on the excesses of the prostitution industry, police have made one thing quite clear to would-be offenders.
The abuse of children will always result in those involved being arrested and prosecuted with the full rigour of the law. Authorities are also advertising a hotline number for members of the public to keep reporting any suspicious activity of this nature. Thai teens are luring their peers into prostitution through social networks in a new internet trend.
Thai police raid a sex for sale hotel in Loei province staffed by Laotian women working as prostitutes. Thai Female Minister declares the end of sex tourism as Thailand too moves towards girl power. Thailand eyes up the sex trade with ongoing raids and a new drive against human trafficking. Carla Boonkong is a magazine writer who writes extensively about woman's issues in Thailand. One of her key subjects is the story of Thailand's growing influence in the world and the role played by Thai women in the process.
