Thailand: Child Sex Workers

A land that has long been notoriously infamous for as a destination for carnal gratification, many tourists from all around the world visit Thailand not only for its beaches, but also for something more sinister: the tropical country has to offer. But it is not only tourists who do so. Many locals take advantage of the legal loopholes to engage in hiring sex workers as well. However, those who are involved in this illicit business are not limited to adults of the legal age of consent, which, according to the Thai law, is 16 years old.

In addition, other legislation taken into consideration, the legal age to engage in sexual intercourse of the nature of prostitution makes 18 years old the actual legal age of the solicitor. However, the legal prohibition is merely ostensive; punishment against what is essentially a commercialized statutory rape is rarely meted out. Under the ever leniently enforced, often malleable and inconstant law, child prostitution is allowed to thrive.

It is estimated that perhaps as many as 800,000 children under the legal age of consent for sexual intercourse (16 years old) are victims of enslavement for the purpose of coerced prostitution. Often procured to much older men against their will, these victims of pedophilia often consist of young girls trafficked from the uplands of Thailand as well as from neighboring and countries. Forced to work in the touristic cities of the coasts, the most infamous among them being Pattaya, a large number of them have been lured by the promise of other occupations involving tasks of non-venereal descriptions.

The gargantuan pedophiliac sex industry also includes many young boys between the age of 10 to 13-years old. Like their female counterparts, they are forced to engage in coital relations with mainly Western men. UNICEF puts the number of children affected by HIV/AIDS, both having been born with and contracted in Thailand at 300,000.

Not only are children who are forced into prostitution exposed to diseases and violence of unspeakable luridness, they are also deprived of their opportunity to be children and to go to school. The result of this lack of opportunity and qualification is a vicious cycle from which victims of child prostitution find difficult to disentangle themselves. Some become procurers and some continue working in the industry.

One discernible reason for the persistence of child prostitution, at least among those victims who have been obtained domestically, may be the value of filial duty embedded within the culture. This may have made some rural parents to, by indiscretion, believe children should be able to “put bread on the table.” Thus, the parents’ approval to have their children leaving home to work allows traffickers to take advantage and lure these unwitting children with to the cities. Once there, they are not given the works they were promised with.

Lastly, without rendering these victims as mere objects, it is after all the demand that calls for the supply. It is the responsibility, first and foremost of the country’s own government, and secondly, though not any less crucial, the international community’s task to eradicate both the demanders and the suppliers. Upon visiting any city known for its nocturnal entertainment, one cannot help but notice the conspicuousness in which such establishments operate. Thus, might the local authorities then be complicit? Children, regardless of whether or not they were born into penury or luxury, are inalienably entitled to basic rights.

Free public education is provided; it is theirs to make use of it. Finally, the cultural factors promote filial responsibility does not imply that these unknowing parents have consented to their children’s being prostituted. Over the past few decades, prostitution, pedophilia and tourism in Thailand have become words that evoke one another and more serious measures must be taken both by the Thai government itself and the international community.

- Peewara Sapsuwan

Sources: CNN, BBC News, UNICEF, Farnoosh Rezaee Ahan
Photo: Child Labor Photographs

IRRI Identifies 44 Climate Change Resilient Rice Varieties

In order to address the threat of climate change on global food security, the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) has released 44 varieties of rice that are resilient to some of the effects of climate change. Currently, around half of the entire global population is dependent upon rice as the staple of its meals.

Meanwhile, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a report on the adaptations necessary due to climate change impacts and states, “starvation, poverty, flooding, heat waves, droughts, war and disease [are] likely to worsen as the world warms from man-made climate change.” The effects of climate change on agriculture, food security and poverty are particularly distressing; billions of people may face an extreme threat to their food and water security by the year 2050.

Because of the dangers that climate change poses on agriculture, the establishment of climate resilient agricultural sectors is a necessary for nations such as Ghana, where food security is diminishing and poverty is increasing. The rice variations introduced by the IRRI can account for some of the environmental concerns placed upon rice production in many nations that are facing impacts of climate change. The 44 types of rice released include “nine salt-tolerant varieties in the Philippines, three flood-tolerant varieties in South Asia, and six in sub-Saharan Africa.”

Although genetically modified crops, such as the climate resilient rice variations introduced by the IRRI, have faced backlash in developed nations, they are beginning to become a necessity in developing nations. Climate change impacts are expected to worsen, as the global environment is a complex system where much can be left unconsidered. Therefore, resiliency in crops is a necessary avenue for research and development in the very near future.

The 44 rice varieties are expected to bolster the agricultural sectors of nations within Africa and Asia including the Philippines, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Nigeria, Tanzania, India, Cambodia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Myanmar and Rwanda. With the global population on a steep rise and mass cases of socio-economic ascension from poverty to the middle class, food demand is significantly high. Currently, the IRRI is working on a tripartite rice variation that is resilient to droughts, floods and saltiness, all of which are staples of climate change impacts on the agriculture sector.

- Jugal Patel

Sources: Interaksyon, Think Progress
Photo: Golden Diamond

Cacao and Child Slavery

As the demand for chocolate has exploded in Western society, the price for cacao beans has plummeted in Western Africa where 70 percent of the world’s cocoa is harvested.

To keep their prices competitive, cocoa farmers use children that they do not pay and only feed sparingly. These children are uneducated and often kidnapped or sold to the farmers by relatives who have no idea they are condemning the child to harsh and often brutal conditions. Most children are between the ages of 12 years old and 16 years old, but some are as young as 7 years old when they start. They rarely have access to clean water or sanitary bathrooms; the vast majority of cacao harvesters have never tasted chocolate.

Aly Diabate, a former cacao slave, recalls that he worked from sunrise to sunset without rest. “It took two people to put the bag [of cacao beans] on my head. And when you didn’t hurry, you were beaten.” Drissa, another former cacao slave was asked what he would tell the people who eat chocolate made from the cacao he’s harvested, and he replied, “When people eat chocolate they are eating my flesh.”

The process of harvesting cacao beans is a perilous one; since it is grown in regions with high insect populations, the cacao pods are sprayed with chemicals that can be harmful to their handlers. The process of clearing for planting and the opening of the cacao pods are both accomplished with machetes, so deep cuts are an expected work hazard.

There are 600,000 cacao farms in the Ivory Coast alone; the business accounts for a third of the nation’s entire economy. To keep costs low, farm owners feed their workers the cheapest foods available, often a corn paste and bananas. UNICEF estimates that half a million children work on the cacao farms of the Ivory Coast.

The chocolate industry is worth an estimated $110 billion per year, $13 billion of which is within the United States. The farms of West Africa supply cocoa to international giants such as Hershey’s, M&M Mars and Nestlé, linking them irrefutably to child slavery and human trafficking.

According to spokeswoman for the Chocolate Manufacturer’s Association, Susan Smith, “A ‘slave free’ label would hurt the people it was intended to help” by prompting a boycott of all chocolate farmed in the Ivory Coast. Since cacao beans farmed by free workers are mixed with those farmed by slaves, it is impossible for even Fair Trade Certified brands to guarantee that their product can’t be traced back to child slavery.

- Lydia Caswell

Sources: CNN, Food Empowerment Project, John Robbins, The Huffington Post
Photo: Nickelodeon

Combating Malnutrition in Zambia

Malnutrition in Zambia runs rampant among children younger than 5 years old. Stunted growth as a result of chronic malnutrition affects one million of those young children. Chronic malnutrition is the result of a combination of insufficient food, poor health and inadequate health practices. Projects and initiatives have been started and continue to address the problem of malnutrition in Zambia.

Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN)

Through the National Food and Nutrition Commission (NFNC), the SUN initiative has been able to implement policies aimed at strengthening agricultural development in Zambia as well as increasing food insecurity. The SUN initiative focuses on the first 1,000 days of a child’s life from the time of conception, a period of time that is critical to human development.

Realigning Agriculture to Improve Nutrition (RAIN)

The RAIN project aims to reduce stunting in children through integrated agriculture, health and nutrition initiatives during the period from conception until 24 months of age. The project is a partnership between Concern Worldwide, which implemented the project, and the International Food Policy Research Institute. The Institute leads the monitoring, education and evaluation components during the five-year span of the project, from 2011 until 2015. The project is located in the Mumbwa district in the Central Province of Zambia, where the prevalence of malnutrition is 59 percent of children who are less than 5 years old.

Purchase for Progress (P4P)

A World Food Programme (WFP) global pilot project called Purchase for Progress helps smallholder farmers improve their opportunities and access to lucrative markets. WFP supports the Zambian government in assisting poor households to overcome malnutrition. The P4P project brings food supplies from smallholder farmers to school nutrition programs. Other activities through the project include the empowerment of women through animal traction, increasing market access and promoting sustainable agriculture methods.

Mobile Delivery and Trucking (MDT)

The MDT project is unique to Zambia and it has transitioned from an electronic food voucher distributor to a service that provides technical support to national agriculture, education, health and social programs. The program engages the private sector for the distribution of affordable, acceptable and accessible nutritious food products.

Those are just a few of the organizations that work on combating malnutrition in Zambia. Poor nutrition in children has been shown to affect mental health as well as physical health. With improvements in nutrition come more opportunities for children to advance in school and eventually be the intellectual force that drives Zambia’s economy.

- Haley Sklut

Sources: International Food Policy Research Institute, Scaling Up Nutrition, World Food Programme, All Africa
Photo: Spark Ventures

Celebration Through Donation

What is the first thing you feel when you remember you have to buy a gift for a special occasion?

For most people, shopping for a gift can be a daunting endeavor as they juggle a multitude of considerations to reach a final decision and make the purchase. However, in the end, the buyer has no real indication of whether their gift was well-received.

This gift giver’s dilemma has recently been assuaged by the emergence of the one and only gift card phenomenon. Recent statistics indicate that in the 2013 holiday season alone, 60 percent of consumers wanted gift cards. While you can pretty much never go wrong with a gift card, critics have pointed out how most gift cards either end up half-used or not even used at all.

There is a new trend emerging, however, that trumps the simplicity and safety of a gift card. People hailing from all walks of life are now taking advantage of special occasions as an opportunity for both the gift giver and receiver to pay it forward.

Those who are passionate about an issue or a cause have most likely experienced how challenging it is to mobilize those around them to care as much as they do about something. There is one thing, however, that is easy to get your network of friends, family, and colleagues to care about: you! In lieu of gifts, people are now asking their social network to raise money for their favorite cause.

This trend has even made its way to celebrity and pop culture, social networking sites, and a variety of NGOs, which all serve as a means to spread the word and inspire global action.

The NGO Charity: Water, for example, has been described as reinventing the world of charitable giving. Its founder, Scott Harrison, turned his birthday party into a fundraiser that raised $15,000 to build water wells in Rwanda.

OneDaysWages is another intriguing group, which works “to raise awareness and funds around the issues of extreme poverty and specifically those related to the Millennium Development Goals.” Through the organization’s website, individuals can calculate and make a donation of their one day’s wage to pledge, as well as pledge their birthday, to raise funds for a specific cause. The organization also lists a variety of options of different charities/nonprofits to which to donate.

- Rifk Ebeid

Sources: One Day’s Wages, SignUp Genius, First Giving, Charity Water, HubSpot, PR Week, NTen, GRI Financial Services, TIME
Photo: Westphillys Finest