Turning a Blind Eye on Thailand's Sex Tourism

Every year milions of "sex tourists" travel to Thailand to pay for sex with "juicy" young Thai girls and boys. This is illegal of course, but you wouldn't think so the way the sex industry is marketed in Thailand. The latest sex scandal is now taking shape in France, watch the video for more information.

But I think everyone is missing the point in all this. It's true that "demand" plays an important role in keeping Thailand's sex industry buoyant , but what about the supply part? Why do these Thai sex workers go to the big cities to sell their bodies?

The reason is extreme poverty. These young people desperately need the money, so they allow themselves to be exploited, while Thai authorities appear to turn a blind eye. Meanwhile, Thai royalist continue to claim that the Thai king has done many good things for poor Thai people.

But is the Thai king partly responsible for the "Sex Tourism" problem? Certainly, if instead of organising photo sessions in which the Thai king distributed bags of free rice to poor Thai people, King Bhumibol spoke out against chronic poverty in rural Thailand, perhaps then this problem wouldn't exist now.

A few bags of rotten rice, and gimmicky "sufficiency" theories don't really help poor Thai people in the long run, thought they certainly boost the king's "divine" image. What poor Thai people need is money to feed their families. In the absence of a real Welfare State there seems little option but for poor Thai people to travel down to the big cities and sell sex to farangs for a few measly bahts.

In his 63 year reign, Bhumibol Adulyadej could have helped to establish a Welfare State in Thailand, if he had wanted to. But he didn't. Instead he chose to exploit Thailand's poor to promote his own image as the "compassionate king", while allowing others to exploit them in sleaze sex bars.

Perhaps that's why Thailand's sex industry exists today. Perhaps if the Thai king had been less concerned with accumulating personal wealth and status, and instead turned his hand at helping his own people escape their wretched poverty, this problem wouldn't exist.