New research from ECPAT International shines a light on boys engaging in their own sexual exploitation by selling sex in Thailand. The report reveals a big knowledge gap amongst frontline welfare service providers, problematic beliefs and attitudes about male and gender diverse child victims, systematic victim-blaming, and an urgent need to adjust support services to fit boy survivors’ needs.

In 2020, ECPAT carefully talked with 20 young people of ‘diverse SOGIE’ who are exchanging sex, to learn what their life is like. In this group, 11 young people identified their gender as male; six called themselves ‘ladyboys’; two identified as trans women, and one as ‘gender of the alternative.’ They were between 15–24 years old, and the majority migrated to cities from rural provinces in Thailand. The majority had been exchanging sex for over a year and around half started doing so while still children. The team at ECPAT also wanted to understand welfare service providers’ attitudes to working with boys and talked to 65 frontline workers in Chiang Mai, Bangkok and Pattaya. This is what we found.

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