[1][2] Even though domestic and international authorities work to protect children from sexual abuse, the problem still persists in Thailand and many other Southeast Asian countries.
During the Ayutthaya period from 1351 to 1767, women were circulated amongst men as concubines or treated as spoils of war given to soldiers as rewards.
"[9] The country shifted from a rice-based agricultural society to one of rapid industrialisation, and Thailand's GDP doubled in the following decade.
The costs of food, land, and tools all increased as the economy grew, but the returns for rice production and other agricultural practices remained stagnant.
[11] Many families are forced to find other methods of income if their land isn't fit for agriculture in addition to the growing social pressure to keep up with industrialised Thailand.
As Bales writes, "Now parents feel a great pressure to buy consumer goods that were unknown even twenty years ago.
The daughters are promised stable employment in the city, which could alleviate the families' financial difficulties, and the contracts are often seemingly appealing but false.
The popular belief in Thailand is that children have the responsibility to provide for the family as a way of repaying parents for giving them a place to live.
[12] In addition to economic factors, the ingrained attitude of female commodification in Thai society is a major reason driving children to be sold into the sex trade.
This teaching is embedded in their religion, Theravada Buddhism, so it is difficult for some children to leave the sex trade because many parts of the country are accepting of it.
[15] According to the United Nations, children are kidnapped from Myanmar, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos to be trafficked to Thailand, where they find a better client base.
In addition, prostituted children who have an STD that causes genital ulcers such as syphilis or chancroid are four times more likely to develop an HIV infection.
Many prostituted children often feel helpless, damaged, degraded, betrayed, and shameful, and they tend to be at high risk of suicide and post-traumatic stress disorder.
[17] Prostituted children may also sustain injuries, including rape, as a result of violence from pimps, clients, police, and intimate partners.
In addition, any government or law enforcement official involved in prostitution in any way "shall be punished with imprisonment of 15–20 years and a fine of 300,000–400,000 baht".
The conference of Stockholm merged the "Agenda for Action," which is a set of strategies used to attack child prostitution globally.