Thailand falling victim to America’s puritanical sex culture

First, I photographed a billboard on the approach to Pattaya which simply read “Stop Child Pornography” and featured the logos of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation and Department of Homeland Security. There were also two logos for Thai government agencies, though we can be sure American citizens paid for this. Of course, concern about child pornography might seem like a no-brainer, but is there any reason to think there is a problem so big that the US must get into Thailand’s business?  
Second, I was surprised to see a group (A21) in the entryway of the Asok MRT station handing out flyers and showing an inflammatory video to school-age children walking by. This is where banks and stores usually advertise. A21’s message is that everyone must watch out for human trafficking and report it. Their flyer tells us there are seven things we should watch for. Examples are “overcrowding” and “appears dirty and wearing ill-fitting clothes”. That could apply to many poorer people. The idea is that we all must watch for these things because this is a huge problem! But evidence, or lack thereof, indicates otherwise.    
These kind of “awareness programmes”, begun in the 2000s by President George W Bush, have been very well funded ever since, if not by the US government then by conservative moralists. If trafficking of people is truly a huge problem, I might agree with these methods.  Yet there is example after example of claims about abused children and trafficking that are false or highly exaggerated. For a local example, let’s not forget Somaly Mam, a globally lauded Cambodian anti-trafficking campaigner who resigned in 2014 amid charges of malpractice. Her ex-husband said: “When you work in this world, you know fabricated stories are used by everyone to get funding.” 
In America, awareness programmes have effectively spread fear. In America people are always in fear of others and it feels ominous – and now Thai people get to share in that fear!    
Every country has specific cultures of its own, and America is proselytising its sex culture around the world, using the threat of economic sanctions as its stick under the Trafficking in Persons programme. In the immortal words of Nancy Reagan, the Thai government should “Just Say NO!”  
John Kane
Bangkok