rationalize their own conduct. Managers of venues catering for sex commerce thus
typically usefictive kin-terms in everyday speech, with female managers commonly
referred to as“Mother,”and male managers as“Father.”Additionally, the managers
refer to the sex workers empathetically as their own children.
8.3 Men as Sex Trafficking Victims..........................
As most of the human trafficking victims in the world are women and girls trafficked
for the purpose of sexual exploitation, there is a highly gendered approach to the study
of human trafficking, as can be seen in Thailand’s situation. Most of the academic
research on human trafficking has been focused on sex trafficking from feminist
perspectives, with the study of prostitution being closely related (Piper 2005 ).
Academics argue that boys and men have so far solely been addressed in labor
exploitation, rather than sexual exploitation (Glotfelty 2013 ). Although 20% of
human trafficking victims in the world are boys and men, because of the gendered
approach on human trafficking, little research has been done on the inclusion of men
and boys in sex trafficking and this issue remains predominantly anecdotal (Piper
2005 ). There are gaps in understanding and acknowledgment of boys as trafficking
victims, due to a degree of social tolerance. Mainstream concepts of human trafficking
deem that females are more vulnerable to sex trafficking and thus are in greater need of
legal protection than males. This traditional narrative obscures the plight of male
victims, especially male children, who remain invisible victims (Jones 2010 ).
The absence of publicity surrounding boys also allows criminal networks that
specialize in obtaining young boys for sex and pornography to be increasingly
attractive and easy to target. Particularly with the popularity of social media and
online technology, traffickers are no longer limited to luring, recruiting, and selling
victims in the streets. Traffickers now have multiple quick choices to target thou-
sands of people through Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, WhatsApp, etc.
Traffickers are also able to control victims using remote surveillance (Whiting 2015 ).
As gender stereotypes are obscured by modern-day media perceptions of male
dominance, showing immunity to victimization, males are believed to be strong and
less vulnerable. Consequently, it is problematic when the males do experience
exploitation because most men do not view the exploitation as an issue that should
be spoken about. They remain silent about their experiences because of socially
imposed pressures to be self-reliant and desire sex, which results in lack of proper
treatment as well as lack of social awareness on this issue. Not to mention that the
effects on boys’development can be dire, as experiences of sexual violence in
childhood hinder physical, psychological, and social development. Children who
are abused sexually are also at heightened risk of being re-victimized,“either again
as children or later as adults”. Yet there prevails to be an alarmingly large lack of
research and media attention on boys as trafficking victims. In fact, data on forced
sexual acts among boys are only available for four countries in the world so far
(UNICEF 2014).
8.2 Sex Trafficking in Thailand 119