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The market in trafficked children bought and sold for sexual exploitation is one of the most inhumane transnational crimes that appear to have been facilitated by globalisation and its many effects, such as growing disparity in wealth between North and South. Child sex trafficking (CST) in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) is an extremely complex problem, deeply rooted in historical injustice, gender inequality and poverty. In addition to the complexities of the child trafficking issue, the organisations that seek to combat CST are themselves not always a united force and display their own internal and inter-agency complexities. The purpose of this paper is to examine some of the key complexities of responding to CST in Thailand and Cambodia.

The methodology for this research consisted of 22 semi-structured interviews with anti-child trafficking experts in Thailand and Cambodia, in addition to field observations in various child sex tourism hubs in Southeast Asia.

The complexities of the CST problem in Thailand and Cambodia are discussed as well as analysis of the internal and inter-agency barriers faced by the organisations that seek to combat CST. The research finds that, due to limitations in donor funding, anti-trafficking organisations face difficulties in effectively responding to all aspects of the CST problem. The recommendation is made for improved advocacy networking against this transnational crime. Recent success stories are highlighted.

The research for this paper involved semi-structured interviews with staff from non-government organisations and United Nations agencies, but not with government representatives. The lack of available data from Thai and Cambodian government representatives limits the ability of the researcher to evaluate the effectiveness of anti-trafficking organisations’ response to the child trafficking issue. Also lacking is the voice of child trafficking victims, the key beneficiaries of anti-trafficking organisations’ aid and advocacy efforts.

There is an abundance of literature on the subject of CST but a dearth in scholarly literature on the subject of advocacy and policy responses to CST in Southeast Asia. This paper provides a valuable contribution the knowledge base on child trafficking by analysing both the complexities of the CST issue and the complexities, for anti-trafficking organisations, of effectively combating CST in the GMS.

The essay aims to suggest policies that can help strategically deconstruct and dereproduce the establishment of (child) sexual exploitation in Thailand and Cambodia in phases, for the purpose of upholding child and human rights and rebranding the global image of these two regional commercial sex hubs in the long term.

This essay is constructed based on the theoretical framework of the social control and general strain theories. Supported by the theories, the essay examines what are the socioeconomic determinants driving the prevalence of the (child) commercial sex industry in Thailand and Cambodia. Here the essay highlights and summarises how the (child) commercial sex industry has been constructed and reproduced. Next, the essay presents the existing policy gaps in relation to (child) sex tourism and sex exploitation. Last, and more importantly, the essay delivers perspectives on how Thai and Cambodian lawmakers and policymakers should respond to the severe societal problems of (child) sex trafficking and prostitution in relation to the prevailing sex tourism.

At the national level, Bangkok and Phnom Penh have an urgent need to rebrand their countries, despite partially allowing commercial sex activities. Moreover, to promote gender equality, Bangkok and Phnom Penh should redistribute their education and occupational opportunities, enabling more school-aged girls or work-aged women to obtain a fairer share of life chances for self-empowerment. At the regional level, Bangkok and Phnom Penh have to tighten regulations against (child) sex exploitation. At the community level, the promotion of community policing can be conducive to minimising any prostitution activities. At the family level, more positive socialisation should be exercised. When more children, including girls, are subsidised to enter school, and are positively parented, there are more educational opportunities for school-aged cohorts.

This essay contains scholarly originality and significance in the presentation of the socioeconomic construction of (child) sexual exploitation, and its relationship to sex tourism and (child) prostitution in Thai and Cambodian contexts, grounded in up-to-date, relevant sociological arguments. A major area that identifies the originality of this essay is the examination of existing, relevant policy gaps in a timely fashion, and correspondingly, the suggestion of policy development that helps deconstruct and deproduce (child) sexual exploitation at the national, regional, community and family levels.

This case describes and analyzes the negotiations surrounding the U.S.–Thailand free trade agreement (FTA) that never materialized. The case offers an excellent opportunity to discuss the complexities of trade negotiations, the welfare analyses of FTAs (with trade diversion and creation), and the growth of FTAs and customs unions (CUs) as opposed to multilateral trade liberalizations.

This paper documents and accounts for the globalization of the so-called national bourgeoisie in the late twentieth century. A substantial and growing body of sociological literature holds that firms and investors from the developing world have been denationalized, neutered, or destroyed by their efforts to penetrate international markets – and that cross-national economic competition is therefore giving way to transnational class conflict over time. By way of contrast, I hold that not only peripheral capitalists but their elected and appointed representatives are compelled to undertake large-scale, fixed investments, exploit their competitive advantages, and challenge foreign firms – and their respective representatives – on their own soil by the very logic of capitalist competition, and that the aforementioned challenges will occur on political as well as economic terrain.

Historically, sex, tourism, and the labor market have long been inextricably linked, but media concerns about sex as the main purpose of tourism, and its effects on the host group and its sex workers, date from the mid-1990s, in the wake of the spread of HIV, the collapse of communism, the rise of the Internet, and the increasing influence of NGOs concerned with women's and children's welfare. This chapter argues that in order to understand fully the relationship between tourism, sex, and the labor market, we need to adopt a broader perspective and look at the various intersections between the three factors, and how they blend into and influence each other. It conceptualizes the three domains of tourism, sex, and work as intersecting circles and analyzes the forms of activity typical of each. “Sex tourism,” as popularly defined, is the space where all three overlap, but there are significant areas of sexual activity associated with tourism that are not commercial, and yet that generate significant and increasing business activity in some destinations. There is also a tendency for partners in commercial sex to define their relationships in terms of other sectors, as “love” or “romance.” The chapter concludes that with economic development, there is a tendency for roles in the sex industry to become increasingly professionalized and differentiated, and that as the industry is unlikely to disappear, regulation should focus on the empowerment and welfare of sex workers rather than abolition and suppression.