Thailand needs more child protection expertise at community level

Violence against children is widespread in Thai society. Figures from the Ministry of Public Health reveal that nearly 9,000 children were treated in hospitals due to abuse in 2017, mostly having suffered from sexual abuse. These figures are likely to be just a tip of the iceberg, as often only the most severe cases of abuse are reported.

Data from a survey by the National Statistical Office in 2015-2016 found that some 4.2% of children between 1 and 14 years old had experienced severe physical punishment at home in the month preceding the survey. This included being hit or slapped on the face, head or ears, or being struck over and over as hard as the parent could.  If that percentage holds true nationally, that would amount to around 470,000 cases.

During the past decade, several important initiatives were introduced in Thailand to better protect children from all forms of abuse, violence, exploitation and neglect. One stop crisis centres and protection shelters were set up in every province to provide treatment, care and support for vulnerable children and children who suffer violence and abuse. The 1300 hotline was also activated to report all social problems, including child abuse.

Still, these child protection services do not yet systematically reach many of the children who need it the most. While specialized expertise exists at the provincial level, violence and abuse occur in all types of communities, where gaps often result in an inability to effectively identify and refer cases of abuse. 

While recognizing that child protection is hard work, requiring resources both financial and human, there are currently hardly any social workers or trained staff in communities or at sub-district level to detect and provide support to children at risk or those who have been abused. Whilst global studies clearly suggest that many children who face abuse will bear significant scars -psychological and at times behavioural- for the rest of their lives, the importance of having child protection expertise is often not fully recognized by authorities, who thus tend to prioritize other sectoral staffing needs.

For every 100,000 people in Thailand, there are only four social workers. At the local level, there's an estimated shortage of 7,000 social workers. This lack of professional staff limits how truly and effectively the system can be in prevention and providing protection.

Today, too many children are today at risk of only accessing services after being abused repeatedly for some time, and possibly fall through the cracks when referred from one service provider to another due to the lack of a dedicated and trained case manager to adequately follow up on the child’s case.

The challenge is then how to ensure that such expertise is available at the community level to manage both identification and referral as needed, to detect and monitor child protection concerns including incidents of abuse and violence, and provide family support. This is a challenge not only for Thailand, but one which many other countries around the world are confronted with.

There are two broad types of solutions. The first is to ensure that sub-district offices (or tambon administration office) include in their offices a social work focal point with child protection expertise and accountabilities or assign the role and accountability to an existing staff member. These staff must be trained to be able to coordinate a broader local network of government staff and volunteers to detect children who are at risk or are victims of violence, provide necessary assistance and refer these children to proper provincial services.

The second is to empower a range of civil society actors, such as NGO staff, to effectively undertake the very same activities, with a “mandate” and support from the state for them to reach children at the local level.

Improving the quality of existing services and ensuring that such services are monitored and evaluated is also critical. Quality detection, referral, treatment and counselling services must be pursued, with proper professional standards, to help children return to normalcy and ensure that no child will fall through the cracks along the service pathway.

For Thailand to better protect its children from abuse, exploitation, neglect and violence, it is essential for the country to invest in child protection systems at every level, whether by strengthening current services, embedding protective services in communities, or recruiting and training staff. Not only will this support the physical and psychological wellbeing of children across the country, but it will also ensure that Thailand’s children and young people are able to exercise their right to protection from maltreatment, enshrined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

This article is part of a series of opinion pieces by UNICEF Thailand, in which the organization proposes policy priorities for children and young people, for the equitable and sustainable development of Thailand.