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Sex Trafficking and Prostitution in Thailand : A Feminist Critique of the Legal Framework

This research aim was to investigate any gap in the international and national legal framework regarding sex trafficking and prostitution, as well as to identify areas for improvement to better protect victims. The research took on a feminist perspective to critique these laws and used Thailand's national framework for further research on how anti-trafficking and prostitution work on a national level. The feminist views come from feminist legal theory as well as radical feminism. Feminist theories are combined with existing literature, along with a qualitative method, legal analysis, and feminist legal method for examining legal frameworks addressing sex trafficking to find gaps in the field. Thailand was chosen due to it being a country with high problems with sex trafficking and prostitution. Thailand has also tried to combat these problems by implementing laws such as the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act 2008 as well as The Prevention and Suppression of Prostitution Act 1996. Thailand has also signed The Protocol to Prevent, Suppress, and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children which was relevant to this thesis.  In summary, legal feminists and radical feminists share many important perspectives about the gaps and improvements that need to be made in the international and legal framework concerning prostitution and sex trafficking. Some of the gaps are that laws fail to address the root causes of prostitution and sex trafficking, struggles with interpretation, and criticism like MacKinnon's claim that laws are fundamentally gendered and cannot be neutralized. furthermore, Thailand's anti-trafficking laws fail to recognize prostitution as trafficking, which criminalizes women in the industry. Rather than handling the demand side (those who pay for sex) the emphasis frequently tends toward prosecuting traffickers, while failing to address enough protection for victims. solutions for the gaps partly involve guidelines for Thailand's officers to easily identify victims.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:ths-2409
Date January 2024
CreatorsForssén, Clara
PublisherEnskilda Högskolan Stockholm, Avdelningen för mänskliga rättigheter och demokrati
Source SetsDiVA Archive at Upsalla University
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeStudent thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text
Formatapplication/pdf
Rightsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

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