Chapter 8
Human Trafficking in Thailand: A Culture
of Corruption
Abstract Human trafficking continues to be a significant problem in Thailand.
Only recently, mainly due to international media coverage and policy decisions
made by foreign governments, the Thai government has started to address the
issues. Although small advances are slowly being made, the underlying root causes
within Thai culture and governmental corruption continue to undermine
anti-trafficking efforts, and can therefore only be solved if significant structural
changes are being made.
8.1 Introduction.........................................
Since the 1980s, with the rise of the sex industry in Thailand due to the Vietnam
War and the discovery of the AIDS epidemic concurrently, human trafficking has
been on the global agenda of high politics. It has quickly become recognized as the
third most profitable criminal activity in the world (Rafferty 2013 ), generating
billions in illegal profits per year. In Thailand especially, human trafficking con-
tinues to be a significant problem, as Thailand is a major source, destination, and
transit country for forced labor and sex trafficking. Although Thailand has sought to
improve its trafficking image and reputation of the country’s infamous sex industry
over the past few years, sex trafficking cases and the numerous unprecedented
reports and investigations of slavery within Thailand’s seafood industry in recent
years continue to dominate international attention (International Labor Rights
Forum and the Migrant Workers Rights Network 2016 ). Outcries from activists and
critics have solely been addressed recently by the Thai government due to the influx
of international media coverage in the past two years. Although advances are
slowly being made, the underlying root causes within Thai culture and govern-
mental corruption continue to undermine anti-trafficking efforts and must therefore
be addressed in order to make significant changes.
©Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2017
P. Malikhao,Culture and Communication in Thailand, Communication,
Culture and Change in Asia 3, DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-4125-9_8
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