Yet though Thailand has made progress in protecting the rights of women and girls, a working class of the UN has urged Thailand to develop constitutional protection systems to protect people from all backgrounds.
After a 12-day attend to important participants in Bangkok, Mae Sot, Chiang Mai, and Hat Yai, the UN Working Group on Discrimination Against Women and Girls held a press event last week to release its preliminary results.
The Thai government invited the group, which consisted of five separate authorities, to assess the development and obstacles to achieving gender equality and the elimination of discrimination. They will submit their entire document to the UN Human Rights Council in June 2025 and are still collecting the data until the end of February.
Haina Lu and Ivana Krstic, researchers from the working class, pointed out various areas that need to be addressed.
” We would like to see the government’s dedication put into action”, said Ms Lu, adding that gender-based crime is also widespread, mainly in vulnerable people groups. ” This is still our great issue”, she added.
Ms. Krstic argued that having effective laws and providing effective shelter for survivors are essential components of addressing gender-based crime.
Resource Disparities
In addition, the report of the working group expressed worry about the ineffective implementation of gender-sensitive accounting, which is crucial to ensuring sufficient resources are available to satisfy the diverse needs of women and girls.
” Politics are not being modified to meet the needs of neighborhood areas. The report claimed that source disparities prevent access to basic services and rights for women and girls, particularly in border regions and southern boundary provinces.
The researchers also expressed worry that gender-based crime remains popular, with limited access to justice. According to the report, over 30 000 sexual assault cases are committed annually against women and girls. However, only around 5, 000 cases are reported to the officers, and only around 1, 500 cases result in detention.
From 2013 to 2022, the Department of Women’s Affairs and Family Development recorded 14, 495 incidents of domestic assault, with 13, 535 patients, among whom 11, 162 were women. Just 158 domestic violence complaints were filed by police in 2022 under the Domestic Violence Victims Protection Act, which revealed a significant difference between the reported incidents and those that were brought to justice.
They were also concerned that technology-facilitated gender-based murder was on the rise, with women, women officials, and ladies human rights defenders becoming regular targets of online sexual abuse, doxing, and abuse. They claimed that prison crowding and a lack of impartial supervision and monitoring of correctional facilities also raise serious questions about whether or not human rights violations can happen.
The party expressed concern over the practice of female genital mutilation in some places of Thailand, such as in the southwestern border provinces, and that neither a legislation prohibiting it nor official statistics regarding its occurrence were available.
Marginalised parties
The working group was also concerned about compounded discrimination faced by women and girls from marginalised groups, including migrants and refugees, ethnic and religious minorities, asynchronous people, persons with disabilities, LGBT people, victims of human smuggling, sex workers, and those living with HIV/Aids.
” These crossing problems often lead to unequal access to justice, training, care, and work, perpetuating phases of risk and exploitation”, they said.
They demanded that the government take strong actions to fulfill existing legal obligations. They also urge the government to decriminalize sex workers, which will reduce corruption and sextortion, particularly against unauthorized women who are battling legal and social issues.
Additionally, the working group suggested that the government increase training for law enforcement and the court on victim-based strategies and anti-discrimination, especially in rural and border areas.
The working group also applauded the opening of a social support center to offer a 24-hour line to victims of gender-based violence, as well as the establishment of child and family houses in every province to offer temporary shelter to victims.
Additionally, it urged the government to increase funding for all women and girls who are under the age of 18 and to establish middle- and long-term shelters for victims, increase resource allocation, and raise the standard of care provided by the Public Health Ministry’s One Stop Crisis Centers, especially in far-offered areas. Additionally, it wanted to make sure that potential patients were made aware of the existence of the centers.
The security of survivors is frequently endangered by severe underfunding of like centers, the stigma against survivors, and the reliance on intervention with the perpetrator, according to the experts.
Additionally, the state should invest more resources to make sure that the necessary accommodations are made for survivors who have disabilities and those who have language barriers by giving more support to civil society organizations that offer specialized support to victims.
Also, authorities should make sure that undocumented migrants who have been victims of human trafficking may be appropriately identified and aren’t prevented from reporting their abuse and exploitation because of their status. Additionally, the party suggested that the government should devote more resources to combating human trafficking at its root.
The team also suggested that the government set up tools to track gender-based violence patients and find out how they are recovering. Without relying on the perpetrators ‘ volunteer consent, the government must also make sure the individuals receive fair compensation.
Thailand really “make sure that no woman or girl is left behind, translating its legal claims into practice and positioning itself as a model for female justice in the region,” the working group said.
” To achieve this purpose, it is necessary to develop strong partnerships with Thailand’s attractive civil community organisations and women’s rights defenders, whose contributions may be constantly supported and safeguarded against any type of harassment, intimidation, or threats”.