Project Title |
The North and Northeast Program to Prevent Child Labor and Forced Child Prostitution, Phases 1 & 2 |
Region/Country |
ASIA/Thailand |
Project Duration |
Completed |
Fiscal Year & Funding Level |
FY 1995: USD 444,126 (modified)
FY1997: USD 242,502 (modified) |
Problem to be Addressed |
Trafficking in young girls, often for commercial sex purposes, has been a problem in Thailand since the early 1980s, particularly in the northern region. Trafficking has also extended to communities on the borders with Burma, China and Laos. |
Results |
The project prevented 4,395 children from trafficking or engagement in commercial sexual exploitation in Northern Thailand (Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Payao, and Lampang) and Northeastern Thailand (Sisaket, Burirum, Ubon Rachatani, and Amnatcharoen),Phrae, Nan, Lampoon, and Mae Hongson. |
Project Objectives |
Phase 1:
Improve and expand innovative programs to protect girls at risk, strengthen coordination among governmental organizations and NGOs, and ensure that successful experiences will be further replicated.
- Improve existing government-provided education for girls at risk;
- Enhance the role of rural teachers in preventing the migration of children to metropolitan areas to take up employment; and
- Improve the grassroots operations of NGOs and expand informal education and skills training programs.
Phase 2:
Develop a coherent, coordinated and sustained response to the problem of child prostitution and child trafficking at the community and provincial level.
- Enhance the role of the Provincial Operational Center to Assist Women and Child Workers in promoting and coordinating the efforts of local agencies to prevent children at risk from being recruited into prostitution and other types of exploitive work;
- Further develop and validate a model educational approach, for use at a large scale, for the prevention of child prostitution and other forms of exploitive child labor; and
- Develop a resource center in the northern region capable of providing technical support to governmental and non-governmental initiatives in the combat of child prostitution and other types of exploitive work.
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Summary of Activities |
Phase 1
- Developed an educational module that provides social and economic alternatives to girls at risk;
- Enhanced the role of rural teachers to prevent child labor migration in northeast Thailand;
- Strengthened the role of NGOs and enhanced networking and cooperation with potential partners in preventing child labor and child prostitution;
- Strengthened coordination among government organizations and NGOs; and
- Raised awareness about child labor among school children and communities.
Phase 2
- Continued to support provincial and local institutions in carrying out preventive programs to address the root causes of child labor and prostitution, in order to develop a sustainable response at the community and provincial levels;
- Further validated the Ministry of Education’s educational model, which provides socioeconomic alternatives to girls at risk;
- Developed a teacher’s manual on child labor and integrated it into the primary school curriculum;
- Strengthened the role of the “Provincial Operational Center To Assist Women and Child Workers” in Chiang Rai to promote and coordinate efforts to tackle the problem of children in prostitution and child trafficking at the provincial level; and
- Supported the Thai Women of Tomorrow Program, a resource center for campaigns against child prostitution in northern Thailand.
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Grantee |
International Labor Organization’s International Program on the Elimination of Child Labor (ILO-IPEC) |
Implementing Partners |
Ministry of Education; Department of Labor Protection and Social Welfare (MOLSW); Sema Pattana Cheevit Project of the Ministry of Education; Foundation for Child Development; Daughter’s Education Program; Chiang Mai University’s Thai Women of Tomorrow Project; Chiang Rai Rachapat Institute; Chiang Rai Teacher College’s Quality of Life Project; Thammasat University’s Faculty of Social Administration. |
Contact Information |
Office of Child Labor, Forced Labor, and Human Trafficking (OCFT)
202) 693-4843 |
