FBI Report from Thailand: Confronting the Child Sex Trade in Southeast Asia

[dru2]

2 hours ago, geisha said:

So, a lot of posts stating they haven't seen proof of this after numerous years in Thailand. ( me neither, by the way, tho I don't go out very late, or to bars/ clubs). But , who has seen this terrible abuse of children in Thailand? No posts on this ?

About 25 years ago, in Pattaya, very young children (per-pubescent, not 17 years old) might occasionally be seen on one of the piers near walking street, I spoke to two ( I was writing freelance for the BKP and The Nation amongst other papers at the time), both were girls, one was 12 and one was 14 years old. The twelve year old told me "chan pen garee sam pee laeo" (I have been working as a whore for three years). I asked about the police at the booth at the end of the pier, and she smiled, wandered over, tapped on the glass and began an amiable conversation with the uniformed policeman who clearly knew her and her business.

 

This is the one and only time (and location) I have seen anything like this in Thailand - and certainly never in Chiang Mai where I have lived for more than a quarter of a century.

 

About 20 years ago there was a case in Chiang Mai where an Australian paedophile named Bradley Pendragon was arrested for having taken photographs of a two young Hmong girls in the hills above Chiang Mai which he had developed at a local Fuji lab. They were 7-8 years old. He was reported because he has abused them not just through intercourse, but with a Buddha image. He got a few years in Chiang Mai prison, then Bangkok, then off to Australia where he is now a registered paedophile and vagrant. The Australian embassy asked us to cover the trial so that no bribery could take place, and our reports were printed in the Melbourne Age.

 

Never heard of anything since. That's not to say it doesn't happen.... but in the 'after hour clubs' (where??) of Chiang Mai. I really don't think so.

Edited September 18, 2016 by dru2

[coma]

4 hours ago, dru2 said:

Chiang Mai's after hours club scene? Is this really the case, or just a "catch all". I'm unaware of it, and if I were aware of trafficked children in such circumstances, I would report it. And I'm sure most normal people would too. And where is Phuket and Soi Bangla in the list?

 

The fact of the matter is this OP is all about window dressing. Pattaya, Bangkok [sex tourist areas] Phuket etc etc would not even be the tip of the ice burg when it come exploiting and trafficking children in Thailand. It would near rate as non existent in comparison to the dark nooks and crannys of the Kingdom.The vast majority of this type of criminal activity is conducted in poor villages in the north, North-East and in neighbouring Myanmar and Cambodia. And are trafficked through a plethora of border towns far far from the reaches of those places mentioned in the OP. But the FBI and Thai government knew that already. Right ??

[chrisinth]

3 hours ago, Father Fintan Stack said:

Just because you haven't seen it doesn't mean it doesn't exist folks.

 

They keep arresting Westerners here and keep finding these underage girls in the massage parlours so the problem must still persist, no?

 

I would agree with the "just because you haven't seen it".

 

But I'd like to twist that a little bit; just because you have read about it, without facts, doesn't necessarily mean it does exist, regardless of the source..............................

Edited September 18, 2016 by chrisinth
added necessarily

[DerringDo]

It's not really the thread for anyone to rush in and say "I saw something and did nothing."

 

I am guessing that many people who have frequented Nana, Cowboy, Rachada and Huay Kwang have looked twice at some of the denizens and moved on about their business.

[kingalfred]

Oh the hypocrisy of the FBI of the USA


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[cumgranosalum]

7 hours ago, oxo1947 said:

Every 109 seconds, an American is sexually assaulted.

And every 8 minutes, that victim is a child. Meanwhile, only 6 out of every 1,000 perpetrators will end up in prison.

 

But please don't let that stop you from telling all the other countries around the world ----just what they are doing wrong...................

https://www.rainn.org/statistics

"Every 109 seconds, an American is sexually assaulted." -  poor unfortunate soul.

 

Edited September 18, 2016 by cumgranosalum

[tominbkk]

7 hours ago, davo2003 said:

I've been vacationing in Thailand mostly Pattaya since 2008. Up and down walking street, bars, beach road etc. Never seen a child for sale, never been offered. If it was a problem all the little kids selling trinkets in the bars would be seen disappearing to short time rooms now and then. Sometimes I think this is just made up to keep donations rolling in to NGOs. The occasional bloke arrested with a girl 17 yrs 11 months and 29 days old keeps this old tale alive though.  

 

Cash Cow Organizations like World Vision define a 'child' as someone 25 years old or younger.  Makes their reports quite spicy!

[tominbkk]

6 hours ago, hdkane said:

But don't you think the Thais won't do anything, unless it impacted their incomes?  The fact that Thailand is an established pedo destination suggests that Thailand simply doesn't care about its children and youth.  I would bet that if the USA/UK/Australia/EU advised its citizens not to visit a pedo playground, then Thais would really do something productive.  

I visited in 1998, and there were tons of kids for sale.  The steps where the old Robinsons was next to Lumphini would have dozens of youngsters sitting there.  Kids with single digit ages.  Taxis would swing by, a finger pointing to who was wanted and they would join the cab.  Tons of big German guys walking hand in hand in Pattaya with single digit aged boys - it was blatant and obviously Thais didn't care.  But right around that time there were several special news reports like Nightline that 'exposed' what was going on.  So by the time I moved here in 93 it was all swept away...probably mostly underground, I don't know.

[nisakiman]

7 hours ago, davo2003 said:

I've been vacationing in Thailand mostly Pattaya since 2008. Up and down walking street, bars, beach road etc. Never seen a child for sale, never been offered. If it was a problem all the little kids selling trinkets in the bars would be seen disappearing to short time rooms now and then. Sometimes I think this is just made up to keep donations rolling in to NGOs. The occasional bloke arrested with a girl 17 yrs 11 months and 29 days old keeps this old tale alive though.  

 

Same as that, both in Thailand and Cambodia. I've met, and enjoyed the company of many 'ladies of the night', some as young as their mid-twenties. I've also encountered numerous kids (especially in PP) selling newspapers and such. But not once since I started regularly visiting the region have I ever come across any suggestion that children were available for sex.

 

As already mentioned, the whole child sex thing provides a rich stream of funding for NGOs operating in the area, so of course they talk it up. I don't doubt that it exists here and there, but I think you'd probably have to look pretty hard to find it. And I would imagine that the last place you'd find it would be in the popular red light districts of Pattaya and Bangkok. They have far too much to lose.

[ericthai]

8 hours ago, davo2003 said:

I've been vacationing in Thailand mostly Pattaya since 2008. Up and down walking street, bars, beach road etc. Never seen a child for sale, never been offered. If it was a problem all the little kids selling trinkets in the bars would be seen disappearing to short time rooms now and then. Sometimes I think this is just made up to keep donations rolling in to NGOs. The occasional bloke arrested with a girl 17 yrs 11 months and 29 days old keeps this old tale alive though.  

It's going on in front of you and you didn't see it.  A child doesn't need to be advertised for sale to be  exploited.  Some of those kids selling trinkets have been sold by their parents, some are working willingly and some are exploited by their partners and made to go out and make money.  They just arrested guy last month in Kho San rd that bought 3 kids from their parents and had them selling flowers.  As for underage girls/boys being used for sex this happens in small soi's in any big city in Thailand. This is not something that is going to be out in your face for everyone to see. I would say 99% of the customers are Thai. 

[arrowsdawdle]

10 hours ago, dru2 said:

Chiang Mai's after hours club scene? Is this really the case, or just a "catch all". I'm unaware of it, and if I were aware of trafficked children in such circumstances, I would report it. And I'm sure most normal people would too. And where is Phuket and Soi Bangla in the list?

 

Crony authorizations?

[arrowsdawdle]

1 hour ago, Father Fintan Stack said:

 

As a 30+ year veteran I have seen it here, in Cambodia and Viet Nam.

 

I have met alleged and (now) convicted pedophiles both in Thailand and in Cambodia.

 

If you have only been coming for a few years then you won't have seen much as it all went underground in the 90's due to Western pressure. 

 

I recall being taken to a local brothel in PP, Cambodia as recent as 2007 where nearly all the girls were underage. I made my excuses to the Khmers we were with and made a swift exit. 

 

Excuses? You needed to be excused from such an environment?

[RedQualia]

The FBI is a national law enforcement agency, not international. They have no legal jurisdiction outside the states, but can be requested to work with different foreign governments, as this story appears to indicate ("they've been good friends with the Thai government for a long time," or words to that effect). The article also has little arrows on either side, and so you can page your way through several stories. All of the stories are similar: short essays discussing this or that thing the FBI may have done, in this country or that, including the USA.

 

In other words, it appears to be a PR site, or set of pages at least, along the lines of "Look at us. We be doing good work everywhere. We're proud of us. Aren't you proud of us?"

 

More precisely, the story is simply that: a story. It is NOT a "report." Sure, it talks about setting up an assistance center of some sort in Chiang Mai, and also mentions something about the Chiang Mai after hours scene. I don't know much about that, but assume there may be at least something happening after hours. Last time I checked, however, there wasn't much happening then, and what there was could be a bit difficult to find. Indeed, I've been given to understand that most of nightlife of any kind in Chiang Mai has pretty much dried up over the past decade or so. Looks like the local group of matrons trying to drive bars out of CM may be having a bit of success.

 

Still, I'm sure there must be some underage stuff happening somewhere in Chiang Mai. And in Udon Thani, and Khon Kaen, and lots of smaller cities around Thailand. I imagine one might find it sometimes at Thai bars at various crossroads in the middle of nowhere around the country as well (one restaurant/bar, one short time hotel, with nothing else for 20KM in any direction. Wonder what's being offered there?). And I'm sure that the closer you get to Bangkok, the more of it exists. Not necessarily in the areas patronized by foreigners. I mean, maybe. But most of the busts I read about in the southern areas for say, underage and foreign girls at massage shops, are not in the areas patronized by foreigners.

 

In summary: this is a fluff PR piece. Not a report. Nothing new about any of this, other than maybe that the Thai police have requested the non-law enforcement assistance of the US FBI, and that the FBI has provided some. No big new busts, no one arrested, no massage shops, beer bars or karaoke outfits closed. An assistance center of some sort established in Chiang Mai, but you can be sure that it was the Thais who did that, and not the Americans. The FBI hasn't somehow gained any legal jurisdiction in Thailand.

 

[jackinthebox]

5 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

It's just the usual western PC brigade BS.  Bangkok’s tawdry red-light districts gives the author's game away.

Referring only to Bkk, Pattaya and Chiang Mai implies that only westerners are to blame and anyone that has been around the bar scene in LOS knows that is an outright lie. That they include nothing about the locals just reduces the entire article to toilet paper.

Yes it goes on in LOS, just like it goes on in the USA. Perhaps the FBI should clean up their own country first, before getting involved in other countries.

all the little kids selling trinkets in the bars

That is the real tragedy as far as western bar scene. It goes on right in front of the WESTERN wanabee cops on Walking Street, and they ignore it. SHAME ON THEM.

 

And what is worst is not only the usual nonsense they write but also the misleading pictures, ie. the  FBI-video with the interview about trafficing and underage sex mixed with shots from 30year old houswives (bar"girls") from Pattaya. BTW if they really wanted to show the business and the environement of illegal sex-activities, they should have gone to Hat Yai. Loads of cars with malaysian number-plates there, thousands of muslim men coming to thailand for sex, as well as many underage girls from thailand trafficed to malaysia. So why not shoot your documentaries down south (or up north in the golden triangle for example)? THAT would be investigative journalism. Too lazy? just to stick to the cliche of pattaya as a gomorrha.

[arrowsdawdle]

What does anyone expect? In the culture of the baht you can buy your way into trouble and just as easily buy your way out of trouble.

 

In 1993-1997 it was reported that up-country parents were selling their kids for an average of US$180@. Nobody seemed outraged.

 

Morals are non-existent, so long as you don't position your feet or pick your teeth improperly, and behavior is a price-based commodity.

[chrisinth]

9 hours ago, Father Fintan Stack said:

 

As a 30+ year veteran I have seen it here, in Cambodia and Viet Nam.

 

I have met alleged and (now) convicted pedophiles both in Thailand and in Cambodia.

 

If you have only been coming for a few years then you won't have seen much as it all went underground in the 90's due to Western pressure. 

 

I recall being taken to a local brothel in PP, Cambodia as recent as 2007 where nearly all the girls were underage. I made my excuses to the Khmers we were with and made a swift exit. 

 

As i stated in an earlier post on this thread, i have no doubt that it happens. 

 

What my gripe was about was how it was written and how it was displayed on the FBI's website. In all your 30+ years, how many times have you seen children being bought and sold in commercial areas in Chiang Mai, Pattaya or indeed any other tourist area?

 

I have been here for about the same period of time, visiting for at least 3 months a year from the mid-eighties until moving here full time in 1997. In the mid eighties when i first started visiting, i was based in Hong Kong involved with, among other things, anti-II, anti-trafficking, anti-smuggling patrols around the territorial waters. Not pretty! Probably seen more of the dark-side of Thailand as well, certainly in the earlier days, but have never seen what the OP is indicating in the depicted areas of the article:

".......in Chiang Mai’s after-hours club scene, and along the neon-infested Walking Street in the coastal town of Pattaya. In these and other places less obvious, trafficked children can be bought and sold, reduced to the basest form of commerce."

 

That is what my earlier comments were based on, what image is being displayed to people that have never visited by a supposed leading law organization of another country.........................

[LomSak27]

Looks like Thailand is giving the US and its Ambassador some strokes so Postive PR can be produced

 

At least about this if NOTHING ELSE ...

 

 

[LomSak27]

15 hours ago, oxo1947 said:

And they wonder why  people feel that some Americans come across as arrogant ----yes Squeegee it's well beyond the reach of posters like me to understand how America is Policing the "Global Village" on a crime that it leads many other countries on---I will just have to leave it to you to explain to everyone....sorry that we are all so stupid not to realise you are after the big fish of Thailand.....

 

 

Case you missed it, this was a THAI initiative to contact the US about this, then a THAI news article PR release told us all about it. . Americans arrogant?! , I would say they didn't know it was happening tell they say this mornings paper   and probably wabnted another cup of coffee when they did see it 

[geriatrickid]

18 hours ago, oxo1947 said:

Every 109 seconds, an American is sexually assaulted.

And every 8 minutes, that victim is a child. Meanwhile, only 6 out of every 1,000 perpetrators will end up in prison.

 

But please don't let that stop you from telling all the other countries around the world ----just what they are doing wrong...................

https://www.rainn.org/statistics

 

 

That's nice, however, you  lose sight of  two important facts;

1. The US efforts are intended to go after their own nationals, i.e. taking responsibility for their own problem and,

2. To respond to an ever present problem that afflicts the stateless, the  destitute and the disadvantaged.

 

Hiso children don't pick prostitution as a vocation. Their parents however, may indeed  make their money importing impoverished Burmese and Cambodian kids. Who will protect these people otherwise? If one looks at the child labour associated with the  seafood industry, did Thailand take action on its own? Did it?  And before you wag your finger at the USA, keep in mind that the EU has been a leader in  taking on exploitation  in Thailand funding the deployment of investigators and funding social services outreach programs.. The US activity is just a part of an overall effort from countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Germany etc.

 

 

 

[thaibeachlovers]

10 minutes ago, geriatrickid said:

 

 

That's nice, however, you  lose sight of  two important facts;

1. The US efforts are intended to go after their own nationals, i.e. taking responsibility for their own problem and,

2. To respond to an ever present problem that afflicts the stateless, the  destitute and the disadvantaged.

 

Hiso children don't pick prostitution as a vocation. Their parents however, may indeed  make their money importing impoverished Burmese and Cambodian kids. Who will protect these people otherwise? If one looks at the child labour associated with the  seafood industry, did Thailand take action on its own? Did it?  And before you wag your finger at the USA, keep in mind that the EU has been a leader in  taking on exploitation  in Thailand funding the deployment of investigators and funding social services outreach programs.. The US activity is just a part of an overall effort from countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Germany etc.

 

 

 

Why is NZ involved in any of this? NZ has more than enough criminal problems to keep every policewo/man busy. That they can't solve them is probably down to the lack of numbers ( only see a cop when something goes wrong ) and I find it hard to believe that they have officers with enough spare time to be wandering around the so called red light areas of Bkk and Pattaya. Mind you, it's hard to "party" in some one horse town in rural NZ, so I get why they want to come to LOS.

[OMGImInPattaya]

Maybe the FBI should focus their keen eye and resources on under-age sexual exploitation in America...like in its police departments:  http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-oakland-sex-scandal-20160909-snap-story.html

[KKr]

5 hours ago, OMGImInPattaya said:

Maybe the FBI should focus their keen eye and resources on under-age sexual exploitation in America...like in its police departments:  http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-oakland-sex-scandal-20160909-snap-story.html

Maybe she was taught in school: "The Police is your best friend:  to Protect and to Serve. "
then again, that was taught 50 years ago ......

 

[Shaunduhpostman]

Of course, human trafficking and children in prostitution is appalling, that it happens in Thailand as well as many other places not least of which would be the USA, is hardly news tho that said,  I am glad there are people who are concerned about the problem and I am certainly not one to say that underaged prostitution and abuse of children in underaged labor in general is something that does not exist here. However, not only does the FBI's contribution here do nothing more than echo the usual media story that crops up in various and sundry "news" outlets around the world probably monthly, but it is one that shows no willingness or apparent sincere interest in the problem, as is often noted anytime the story comes up, you are not, as the FBI claims, going to find that Walking Street in Pattaya or any of the other red light areas in Thailand are crawling with under aged prostitutes. It is rather irresponsible to tar entire tourist zones in Pattaya with a rather wide brush stroke and seemingly suggest that the whole area is some kind of pedo-zone. Looking at the FBI's video,  the scenes in which it is suggested that these child prostitutes are working are quite clearly populated with scenes in which adults are plying their trade. Essentially, the FBI, with all of their credibility is suggesting to Americans and the whole world that anyone who goes to say Pattaya is visiting a place for underaged sex.  It doesn't take more than an hour of walking around Walking Street to see that it is much less seedy than the shadowy scenes that appear in the FBI's video and that it certainly isn't some place you go to have sex with children anymore than a shopping mall or a bar in any major U.S. city where I'm sure that  if you asked around enough you could certainly get hooked up for sex with minors. I would also think it would be at least one plus point on Thailand's side in the view of these self-righteous purveyors of what is best for Thailand, that the age limit for what is considered underaged sex would 20 years or younger. So could we here in Thailand say that the most U.S. states promote pedophilia because the legal age is 18? It wouldn't surprise me if a few states in the south had the age set at 16. I would be left to conclude that this whole story complete with the ugly American ambassador is as much about other agendas than what it would seem on the surface, ie that we are so concerned about Thailand's young people. As a US citizen I find it alarming how with each passing year it is easier and easier to fall afoul with US authorities or the general public for simply living abroad, whether it be draconian tax penalties for simply not having reported what was in your bank account, a well hidden and completely obscure requirement that even a yearly tax reporting citizen such as myself would overlook because there is no reference to it anywhere in the tax forms, to some official at the FBI who has likely never even been to Thailand saying something to the effect of, "Hey, Chumley! Why don't we make this week's PR video on ya know that place Pattayore or whatever its called up there in Hong KOng or Taiwan or whatever that country is. We need to make people here at home in America think we are aware of how these problems are affecting us." Its not enough that we must be some kind of a bunch of terrorists because we open a foreignn bank account and live abroad for years. I would suggest that if the FBI were interested in this problem, or interested in keeping U.S. citizens truly informed that they present programs that treat the topic with some seriousness and depth. Additionally, human trafficking is not just about prostitution but about procuring bonded if not enslaved people for all types of work. If the FBI is going to take the high moral ground then they ought to look at the entire basis for their lifestyles, that is sweatshop and slave labor produced goods and services and the general trend for the increased criminalization of all people and for the increased trend of people being pushed into poverty as a direct result of the US's foreign and domestic policies.  Anyone who wants to get real about reducing child prostitution and human trafficking does not simply treat it as a law enforcement problem, its roots are in poverty and social chaos much as the US has been directly implicated in for well nigh on century abraod and from the  get go in 1492 domestically. As it is, with this kind of ill informed soundbite or sound-fart they are just doing a form of smear and gossip that is potentially damaging to many who have nothing to do with pedo sex tourism simply because they live in or have visited Thailand. Most Thais don't much care what the FBI thinks, the smear on Thailand that it is just a place that is full of a bunch of prostitutes has rightly been ignored, the hysteria, not to mention bigotry to sit up there and point the finger as though the problem doesn't exist in your own country, of these puritains is age old in many western countries, Thais and others never hear the end of this. I would hope the FBI knows that and assuming they do, I think it can be assumed that the target for this kind of seemingly lazy reporting is again US citizens who live abroad and thus make it perhaps inconvenient for the national security state and that they would like to make people subject to the pressure of if-you-as-American-citizen-live-Thailand-you-are-a-pedophile. Just another front on which the national security state  wages war on its own people but  what else could we expect from the FBI who exonerated Hillary Clinton of crimes that many lesser officials have served time for, so where are we to find the den of crooks, on Walking Street? This kind of flatulent emanation from the FBI is an outrage, it is assumuption of guilt without looking into the reality of Thai red light districts.  it is just a drop in the bucket along with all of the other things that the  post 911 regime is doing  that frankly I couldn't be bothered with. Good luck with your friendship with Thailand, nobody likes dealing with a patronizing, smug hypocrite good luck trying solve the problem of human trafficking without even bothering to look at the root causes and doing what needs and must be done about US policy both foreign and domestic.

[johnnywishbone]

The FBI has lost all credibility


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[johnnywishbone]

What is NGO please


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[RedQualia]

Another Thai venue bites the dust, and apparently yes... In Chiang Mai.

 

http://www.chiangmaicitylife.com/news/brothel-restaurant-raided-by-police/

[LawrenceChee]

About 25 years ago, in Pattaya, very young children (per-pubescent, not 17 years old) might occasionally be seen on one of the piers near walking street, I spoke to two ( I was writing freelance for the BKP and The Nation amongst other papers at the time), both were girls, one was 12 and one was 14 years old. The twelve year old told me "chan pen garee sam pee laeo" (I have been working as a whore for three years). I asked about the police at the booth at the end of the pier, and she smiled, wandered over, tapped on the glass and began an amiable conversation with the uniformed policeman who clearly knew her and her business.

 

This is the one and only time (and location) I have seen anything like this in Thailand - and certainly never in Chiang Mai where I have lived for more than a quarter of a century.

 

About 20 years ago there was a case in Chiang Mai where an Australian paedophile named Bradley Pendragon was arrested for having taken photographs of a two young Hmong girls in the hills above Chiang Mai which he had developed at a local Fuji lab. They were 7-8 years old. He was reported because he has abused them not just through intercourse, but with a Buddha image. He got a few years in Chiang Mai prison, then Bangkok, then off to Australia where he is now a registered paedophile and vagrant. The Australian embassy asked us to cover the trial so that no bribery could take place, and our reports were printed in the Melbourne Age.

 

Never heard of anything since. That's not to say it doesn't happen.... but in the 'after hour clubs' (where??) of Chiang Mai. I really don't think so.

I have to agree ...finished dinner at 7pm and that was considered late !!! I don't think this stuff happens in Chiangmai ...lived here for years and I don't there is anything here that qualifies as raunchy


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[webfact]

Report from Thailand Part 2: A New Emphasis on Helping Child Victims

 

Full story: http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/944014-fbi-report-from-thailand-a-new-emphasis-on-helping-child-victims/