Friday, April 17, 2015

Rape in Thailand: Stop blaming the victims...

The Thai New Year Festival has come to an end, the streets are eerily quiet, and online news media is mopping up the aftermath of the festival’s more negative impact on society. This year, arguably, was a stand-out out year for official extremism concerning safety initiatives, with Thai people being exposed to a very long list of crackdowns relating to: water-squirting weapons, alcohol consumption, dangerous driving, and “improper dances or performances that do not reflect Thai culture”.

In terms of crackdown success there was reason to rejoice; the use of water-squirting weapons that might cause a victim to feel slightly aggravated was down. However, not surprisingly, there was still a lot of road accidents and deaths, in fact, in spite of the rigorous crackdowns, this was one of the worst years on record for traffic accidents and deaths.

In terms of cultural impropriety, most of which concerns how women dress, or dance, one cannot be sure how to quantify success. Prior to the beginning of the festival, Sin Suesuan, the Director of the Thailand’s Moral Promotion Center, had told the Thai public that women should dress appropriately during Songkran as inappropriate dress could result in sexual assault. This is reminiscent of General Prayuth Chan-ocha’s comments after the murder of David Miller and Hannah Witheridge in Koh Tao, when he said wearing bikinis might not be safe on Thailand’s beaches.

We don’t know how many rapes occurred during this year’s festival. We do know that a 33-year-old Thai woman was brutalized, and murdered, by someone who police now say is a serial rapist, in Chiang Mai. To accord the abject violence of this attack, in any nth of a degree, to a woman’s failings in dressing appropriately, is obscene. But one would think, given the above statements by Thai officials, that the victim was partly to blame. Full story...

Related posts:
  1. Rape in India: it's your fault, of course...
  2. Thailand: Women warned against 'underboob selfies'
  3. The Indian woman "rapist" who "married" her victim...
  4. Rapist cannot escape justice by marrying victim, says Indian judge...
  5. Moroccan teen, forced to marry her rapist, commits suicide...
  6. Outrage in Malaysia as 40-year-old rapist marries 13-year-old victim...
  7. Indian woman burns her rapist to death...

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