Nearly half Bangkok's children sexually harassed or abused

[wowpow]

Thai minors claim sexual harassment - Bangkok Post

(TNA) - Nearly half the children of metropolitan Bangkok and outlying areas between the ages of 11 and 14 were sexually harassed or abused, according to the latest survey by the Assumption University Poll Research Centre (ABAC Poll).

Interviewing young men and women between ages 15 and 24, ABAC this week learned that two-thirds of the women and nearly one-third of the men said they were harassed or abused when they were children.

Conducted May 24-30 with 3,139 respondents aged 15-24 in Bangkok and its three surrounding provinces - Nonthaburi, Pathum Thani and Samut Prakan, the current poll found that 2 out of 3 - 66.2 per cent of girls experienced sexual harassment, both verbal and physical, including both rape and attempted rape.

Girls were twice as likely to be subjected to sexual advances as boys, according to the poll.

Some 26.1 per cent of the young men interviewed claimed they were sexually abused in the past.

According to the poll, both girls and boys were abused as minors, between the ages of 11-14, before any commonly understood 'age of consent'.

The poll respondents said that many factors triggered sexual harassment against Thai minors.

Heading the list is 'a society in moral decline' which 59.2 per cent of respondents said needed to be urgently addressed.

Some 57.4 per cent of the respondents attributed the sexual harassment to pornographic CDs and movies, 53.6 percent blamed the light penalties imposed against offenders, 51.8 said seductive clothing of actors, actresses and singers were to blame, and 49.3 said alcoholic drinks were the among major causes.

According to the poll, sexually-abused youngsters rarely lodged complaints against their offenders.

Regarding condom usage, the survey found that the numbers of Thai youth using condoms every time they have sex this year has risen to 27.0 per cent compared with 19.7 per cent last year, while the number of those using condoms "sometimes" when having sex has declined to 44.9 this year from 50.4 per cent last year, and the number of those who say they never use condoms at all has decreased to 28.1 per cent this year from 29.9 last year.

It would be of some interest if we were told who the abusers were, family, friends, neighbours, the village monk?

[Surfcrest]

(TNA) - Nearly half the children of metropolitan Bangkok and outlying areas between the ages of 11 and 14 were sexually harassed or abused, according to the latest survey by the Assumption University Poll Research Centre (ABAC Poll).

the current poll found that 2 out of 3 - 66.2 per cent of girls experienced sexual harassment, both verbal and physical, including both rape and attempted rape.

Interesting statistics and even more interesting in how biased they are presented.

Not once do they report what percentage of sexual harassment, both verbal and physical was which. By adding тАЬincluding both rape and attempted rapeтАЭ they mislead you to believe the statistics areтАЭ made up ofтАЭ rather than тАЬmay containтАЭ rape and attempted rape. Next question is the definition of attempted rape.
Sexual harassment includes a huge context that is indeed real, but not necessarily associated with what we know as sexual abuseтАжbe it verbal or physical.



Heading the list is 'a society in moral decline' which 59.2 per cent of respondents said needed to be urgently addressed.

Some 57.4 per cent of the respondents attributed the sexual harassment to pornographic CDs and movies, 53.6 percent blamed the light penalties imposed against offenders, 51.8 said seductive clothing of actors, actresses and singers were to blame, and 49.3 said alcoholic drinks were the among major causes.

It sounds as though the moral majority is on a campaign to justify their existence by carefully manipulating statistics in these types of stories. This is all the more fuel for Taxin and the likes to slow the progress of social reform and modernism that includes attacks on the Thai nightlife scene and police raids / intervention. It made me wonder this year while the police focused their campaign on the simple street vendors of the Patpong the dozens of DVD-Sex pushers were allowed to continue on in clear earshot of the police.

IтАЩm not one to want to see Thai culture erode away into a global culture, but surely they can be Thai and get their priorities right at the same time huh?

Surfcrest

[cottmann]

Without knowing what questions were asked and how theu were worded, it is a little difficult to accept at face values these figures, given the misleading way in which they are reported.

It may be worth remembering that Assumption University is a Catholic organization, though I point no fingers.

[dab69]

Some 57.4 per cent of the respondents attributed the sexual harassment to pornographic CDs and movies, 53.6 percent blamed the light penalties imposed against offenders, 51.8 said seductive clothing of actors, actresses and singers were to blame, and 49.3 said alcoholic drinks were the among major causes.

WOW over 210% were polled. Wonder what all the others blamed- Thaksin's new math?

[Aunty]

Sounds like The Assumption University is making a number of assumptions!

Just proves my point over and over again. Thai people are not taught to think or process or analyze information. Thailand is a nation of imitators and not innovators. ABAC gathered the information but they have NO CLUE as to how to understand it or how to use it effectively.

The Thai education system is a joke. From before grade 1 all the way through university. It's the blind leading the brain dead.

But isn't that the way we westerners like our Thais dumb but cute?

ajarntrade

[Surfcrest]

Just proves my point over and over again. Thai people are not taught to think or process or analyze information. Thailand is a nation of imitators and not innovators. ABAC gathered the information but they have NO CLUE as to how to understand it or how to use it effectively.

The Thai education system is a joke. From before grade 1 all the way through university. It's the blind leading the brain dead.

But isn't that the way we westerners like our Thais dumb but cute?

ajarntrade

You have made more than a few points here, which one is being proven over and over again?

That the report was a generalization / manipulation of information to support a specific message?

Or that you are just as good at generalizing yourself?

I doubt very much that Thai children are brain dead.

I doubt all Thai educators are blind.

Perhaps when you were part of the same system that you criticize, that which you knew to be true was.

The board may or may not agree with your final statement, but I for one (assuming when you say dumb / even as an educator/ you mean stupid) prefer my Thai friends to be intelligent. Cute? Sure!

I would have thought living in beautiful Mexico, one of the most perfect countries going would have cured your bitterness for having worked in Thailand.

Entonces........buena suerte

Surfcrest

[wowpow]

If we could ignore the nit pickers for a moment and accept the broad strokes of the report. One wonders if it will engender any "Action" to reduce the levels of abuse which are clearly very high.

In the UK we thought there was no problem with Child abuse until Esther Rantzen of the BBC did an investgative report and opened Childline - a confidential telephone site for children with such problems - they got over a million calls in one year. By it's nature abuse is hidden and difficult to quantify and analyse. Then laws were changed and the Social Services kicked in with a vengeance.

Huge worldwide publicity is given to sex tourists and pederasts arrested in Thaialnd. It seems that that is a tiny percentage of what goes on and there seems very little that the kids can do about it?

Ajarntrade. It is no secret that Thai schools teach by rote which stifles innovation and curiosity. The Government announce every now and then that to is working to change this to child centered teaching etc. but with the whole country geared in this direction it is extremely difficult to change - who teaches the teachers? Also it seems that industry is very happy with drones who can read and write and be taught repetative tasks and will do them fairly happily. The top tier wealthy families send their kids to International schools at great expence and then send them abroad to the US, UK, Australia and New Zealand to get a great education.

[cottmann]

If we could ignore the nit pickers for a moment and accept the broad strokes of the report. One wonders if it will engender any "Action" to reduce the levels of abuse which are clearly very high....

I'm sorry, and without in any way wishing to diminish the seriousness of the problem of child abuse - I think anyone who preys on kids should be locked away, preferably with Michael Jackson - I have problems with reports like this and with suggestions that the levels of abuse are "clearly very high."

Quote: "Nearly half the children of metropolitan Bangkok and outlying areas between the ages of 11 and 14 were sexually harassed or abused, according to the latest survey by the Assumption University Poll Research Centre (ABAC Poll)."

No - 2/3rd of women and nearly 1/3rd of men in a sample of 3,139 reported that they were harassed or abused. Anyone with any knowledge of sampling would be chary of such a report when no details are given of the sampling procedures used. Unless we know the sampling procedure, we cannot generalize to all the children of Bangkok. We are not even told the proportions of males and females in the sample, or their educational level, socio-economic status, birth order or position in the family, etc., all of which could be contaminating factors.

"Interviewing young men and women between ages 15 and 24, ABAC this week learned that two-thirds of the women and nearly one-third of the men said they were harassed or abused when they were children."

What questions were asked, and how were 'abuse' and 'harassment' defined? Was the abuse verbal or physical? What constituted harassment - unwanted touching? Showing sexually-explicit pictures? Who did the abusing or harassing - family members, strangers, other children? How often and over what period of time?

"Conducted May 24-30 with 3,139 respondents aged 15-24 in Bangkok and its three surrounding provinces - Nonthaburi, Pathum Thani and Samut Prakan, the current poll found that 2 out of 3 - 66.2 per cent of girls experienced sexual harassment, both verbal and physical, including both rape and attempted rape."

Who conducted the interviews? Responses can be seriously skewed is certain questions are asked by particular groups of people. Why conflect verbal and physical harassment and rape and attempted rape, and not report the figures separately?

"Girls were twice as likely to be subjected to sexual advances as boys, according to the poll." Again, by whom, how often, over what period of time, etc.

"Some 26.1 per cent of the young men interviewed claimed they were sexually abused in the past." Again, by whom, how often, over what period of time, etc.

"According to the poll, both girls and boys were abused as minors, between the ages of 11-14, before any commonly understood 'age of consent'."

In this context, the sort of abuse considered is implicit in the addition of "age of consent," without it being clearly stated that it was sexual and not physical and/or verbal abuse.

ABAC POLL'S web-site says:
"ABAC polls have been conducted to gather opinions, attitudes, beliefs, behaviors, and other social facts from a sample of individuals. Not only do polls have a wide variety of purposes, they also can be conducted in many ways -- including over the telephone, by mail, website, or in person. Unlike a census, where all members of the population are studied, polls gather information from only a portion of a population of interest -- the size of the sample depending on the purpose of the study. In a bona fide poll, the sample is not selected haphazardly or only from persons who volunteer to participate. It is scientifically chosen so that each person in the population will have a measurable chance of selection. This way, the results can be reliably projected from the sample to the larger population. Information is collected by means of standardized procedures so that every individual is asked the same questions in more or less the same way. The poll's intent is not to describe the particular individuals who, by chance, are part of the sample but to obtain a composite profile of the population. "

I have no problem with what is said about how polls are carried out, but as we are not told how this poll was conducted I have doubts about the way in which the population was chosen and the sample was identified.

I am perfectly prepared to believe that the situation is as described - it may even be worse - but only when all details of the poll are published - not sensationalist extracts. This poll is not mentioned at the moment on ABAC POLL'S web-site, btw.

International surveys conducted by sociology research institutes at London School of Economics and Stanford University asked questions concerning spousal abuse of significant samples of married men in 36 countries. More than 37% of the Thai survey sample self-reported beating their wives physically. This was by and far the highest affirmative response rate to the question "do you physically beat your wife on a regular basis". The next highest response rate, among the remaining 35 nation samples, was 13%.

The Thai government itself reports that 35% of women in Thailand of reproductive age earn at least a portion of their income from sex work.

It appears not to be a problem for the Thai government as a Thai language instruction book, published by the TAT, has a chapter on how to approach a woman in a Thailand hostess or go-go bar for sex.

On the issue of Thailand's educational system, I have to agree with ajarntrade that critical thinking and analysis seem to be left out, even at the professional degree program level at flagship universities. Merely read a few of the doctoral dissertations from Chulalongkorn or Thammasat Universities and one will see the same magico-religious thinking that dominates politics and the annual calendars of village and city life the Royal Kingdom of Thailand.

Perhaps, one can legitimately claim the same regarding ignorance emanating from lack of education in any large central city core in Europe, Australia of the United States. This also applies to significant segments of the educated middle classes and upper classes in the West; and most definitely to some members of this Forum.

Nonetheless, a significant difference is that the formal educational system of the Royal Kingdom of Thailand seems to have the opposite intent of those in the West. The Thai system seems to foster, if not engender, a continuance of ignorance merely reformulated.

[Surfcrest]

Nearly half the children of metropolitan Bangkok and outlying areas between the ages of 11 and 14 were sexually harassed or abused, according to the latest survey by the Assumption University Poll Research Centre (ABAC Poll).

One wonders if it will engender any "Action" to reduce the levels of abuse which are clearly very high.

While not wanting to sound like a "nit picker", are we now talking about abuse or sexual harassment? There clearly is a significant difference between the two and no doubt the statistics in the report support may support this level of a problem as combined issues.

You are now specifically talking about abuse and I'm not seeing statistics that speak of this issue as a stand alone.

I find it difficult to believe that sexual abuse is happening at a rate to cause this level of alarm. I personally think that the Thai focus on the priority of family works directly against this premise.

The papers I've read on this topic of abuse seem to support the theory that abuse is repeated from generation to generation. The abused becomes the abuser. In a Western environment, the epidemic surfaced not because the level of abuse reached an intolerable level, but because it became acceptable for people to speak out about it.

Similarily so, the same is happening in the work place with sexual abuse. These two issues, however, are apples and oranges and I find it to be sensationalism by statistics to take a report like this and make it all about abuse.

Surfcrest

"The poll respondents said that many factors triggered sexual harassment against Thai minors. Heading the list is 'a society in moral decline' which 59.2 per cent of respondents said needed to be urgently addressed.

Some 57.4 per cent of the respondents attributed the sexual harassment to pornographic CDs and movies, 53.6 percent blamed the light penalties imposed against offenders, 51.8 said seductive clothing of actors, actresses and singers were to blame, and 49.3 said alcoholic drinks were the among major causes".

It is interesting to see that the polling age range was 15 to 24 and that within this age group they chose 'a society in moral decline' as the issue to be addressed urgently. It sounds, from the responses, that poll respondents had a list of options to choose from and were not allowed their own head in coming up with their own thoughts on the reasons for abuse. A closed poll is easier for the researchers to manage the results but does not always allow for the full breadth of reasoning to be addressed. I further think that it is bizarre that the respondents can perceive that a society is in moral decline in their short 15 to 24 year old lives.

It would/could have been interesting if the poll was conducted with different specific age groups, with an uppper teir of ageing Thai's. If the Thai's in their 80's were convinced to respond to the polling honestly, would we have found out that child abuse was just as prevalent 60 or 70 years ago, but that there were no polls, no reporting of abuse (or limited reporting) and very few families willing to talk about it at that time? Who knows as the research did not go down this route.

As for Thai's being dumb, I tend to find it quite amazing that, considering the lack of educational opportunities, Thai people are so well rounded, adaptive and intelligent. How many of us speak more than one language. I myself haven't mastered English (my own language) after 42 years and can just about say hello in German after three years of Comprehensive School training (many years ago). I now have a smattering of Thai, enough to get by in social situations, but can speak very little Thai when compaired to the number of Thai guys who can speak limited, good or excellent Engllish. Many Thais can speak their own language (of course), maybe some Laos, Cambodian, have varying degress of competence in Japanese, Chinese, English and other western languages. Many of the guys I have met have come from farms where it was, I am told, more important to ensure a good harvest than receive a full education. The view that Thai's are dumb is insullting not only to them but to every board member.