Don't! Buy! Thai! was a campaign initiated in the early 1990s by

child welfare Child protection (also called child welfare) is the safeguarding of children from violence, exploitation, abuse, abandonment, and neglect. It involves identifying signs of potential harm. This includes responding to allegations or suspicions ...

advocate An advocate is a professional in the field of law. List of country legal systems, Different countries and legal systems use the term with somewhat differing meanings. The broad equivalent in many English law–based jurisdictions could be a ba ...

and

author In legal discourse, an author is the creator of an original work that has been published, whether that work exists in written, graphic, visual, or recorded form. The act of creating such a work is referred to as authorship. Therefore, a sculpt ...

Andrew Vachss Andrew Henry Vachss ( ; October 19, 1942 – November 23, 2021) was an American crime fiction author, child protection consultant, and attorney exclusively representing children and youths. Early life and career Vachss grew up in Manhattan on ...

boycott A boycott is an act of nonviolent resistance, nonviolent, voluntary abstention from a product, person, organisation, or country as an expression of protest. It is usually for Morality, moral, society, social, politics, political, or Environmenta ...

goods and services produced in

Thailand Thailand, officially the Kingdom of Thailand and historically known as Siam (the official name until 1939), is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. With a population of almost 66 million, it spa ...

until its government introduced formal and practical reforms to significantly curtail the

prostitution of children Child prostitution is prostitution involving a child, and it is a form of commercial sexual exploitation of children. The term normally refers to prostitution of a Minor (law), minor, or person under the legal age of consent. In most jurisdict ...

. The organization of Don't! Buy! Thai! was willfully informal, with promoters refusing donations. The campaign had great difficulty attracting attention from television, radio, and print media, so discussion was conducted largely on the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...

. Online, it came under vociferous attack by Sean Parlaman, who presented himself as a crusader against the prostitution of children. Parlaman variously accused the Don't! Buy! Thai! campaigners of being fundamentalist Christians, right-wing bigots, and

pedophiles Pedophilia ( alternatively spelled paedophilia) is a psychiatric disorder in which an adult or older adolescent experiences a primary or exclusive sexual attraction to prepubescent children. Although girls typically begin the process of pubert ...

. In 2000, frustrated by the lack of traction and noting that the prostitution of children to

sex tourists Sex tourism is the practice of traveling to foreign countries, often on a different continent, with the intention of engaging in sexual activity or relationships, in exchange providing money or lifestyle support. This practice predominantly oper ...

had become less concentrated in Thailand, Vachss and most of those involved abandoned the boycott.

References

* de Lint, Charles; “Books to Look for”, ''The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction'', v 89 #4 (October/November 1995). * Herbert, Bob
“In America; Kids for Sale”
''New York Times'', 22 January 1996. * Bishop, Ryan, and Lillian S. Robinson; “Batman: The Ultimate Evil”, ''the Nation'', 29 January 1996. * van Esterik, Penny; ''Materializing Thailand'' (2000), Berg .

References

External links

See also