Situation of children in Thailand
For many children in Thailand, life has been improving rapidly. In 1992, the government made itself accountable for progress towards achieving child rights by ratifying the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Since then, there have been major improvements for children. For example, the number of child deaths and the incidence of diseases that commonly affect children have fallen dramatically. Literacy rates have soared, far fewer children are malnourished and far more are in schools and not working. Nonetheless, some of the problems that faced children in Thailand decades ago are still plaguing them today. These include malnutrition, exclusion from education, trafficking, child labour and other forms of exploitation. Too many children have missed out on the benefits of Thailand’s development – particularly the children of ethnic minorities, migrants and the very poor. Development itself and the changes that come in its wake have also brought a host of new challenges for children and young people. These include the spread of HIV/AIDS, the break up of traditional family systems and a rising toll of child deaths from road traffic and other accidents. The trafficking of children continues both within Thailand and from Thailand to industrialised countries. In addition, as Thailand has become wealthier in comparison with its neighbours, trafficking networks have expanded to draw in children from more isolated communities in nearby countries for exploitation here and abroad. There are also signs that more children in Thailand who are not in desperate poverty are “choosing” to become involved in commercial sexual exploitation in response to growing materialism. In some border areas, children are still at risk of being killed by landmines or being recruited as soldiers. Although national HIV infection rates plummeted during the 1990s from an estimated 125,000 new infections in 1992 to fewer than 20,000 in 2003, the epidemic has spread from the North to cover the entire country and from traditionally high-risk groups into the general population. Despite increased awareness, risk-taking continues and infection rates are rising among the young and among populations in parts of the South. An estimated 380,000 children have been orphaned by the AIDS epidemic, placing a considerable burden on grandparents and other caregivers, who are not always able to provide the financial and emotional support children need. Some 200-300 children are thought to be born HIV-positive each year. These children and other infected young people require anti-retroviral medicines.
Access to eduction is still a concern. An estimated 900,000 primary-school aged children are either not in school or are not enrolled in school at the right age, and even more children are missing out on a secondary school education. For those children who are in school, there are serious concerns over the quality of the education they receive and whether it is relevant to their needs now and in later life. These concerns are particularly acute for the children of minority groups, who live in the remotest and most deprived areas and who may require bilingual education to benefit fully from schooling. An estimated 1 million children have no birth registration documents, without which it is much harder for them to claim their entitlements to education, healthcare and legal protection from abuse. Again, it is the children of minorities, migrants and refugees that are most affected. The age of criminal responsibility is just 10 years, which is grossly out of step with international norms. Partly as a result of this, but also due to a failure to consider the detention of minors only as a very last resort, far too many children are in detention facilities and prisons. For them, and for children who come into contact with the criminal justice system as victims or witnesses, there is an urgent need for more child-sensitvie court procedures that protect the identity of children and ensure that the victims of crime are not retraumatized by the process of punishing their abusers. Other concerns include one of the lowest levels of exclusive breastfeeding in the world, poor iodized salt coverage and the status of women, who still suffer domestic violence as well as discrimination in employment, income and education. In 2004, Thailand reported on its progress towards the Millennium Development Declaration and its Goals, many of which include targets relevant to children. This report noted that more must be done at the sub-national level if rights are to be safeguarded for all children, including the children of marginalised, isolated and minority groups. Reaching these groups is a serious challenge; but it is a challenge that the government committed itself to meeting when it ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.
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