Happening in Thailand

WatchBirds’ first action

On September 21, 2022, the WatchBirds project took its first initiative by submitting a report to the new Bangkok governor's online issue management system. The reported issue was about prostitution activities in the notorious red light district in the Nana area of Bangkok, widely known as a sex tourism destination for foreigners.

The issue management system is quite easy to use and deserves praise, but the final output was quite to the contrary. The issue was submitted and promptly diverted to the Royal Thai Police. The system shows that the Royal Thai Police assigned the issue to the Lumpini police station to investigate. On the same day, around 9 PM, the issue was closed with a report stating that no prostitution activity was found in the reported area, accompanied by a photo of a police squad standing in front of the Nana Plaza sign as evidence of an official inspection.

Why did we submit the issue to the Governor of Bangkok issue management system and not the police? Because the police already know all the issues and they are still present, which leads us to suspect that they are intentionally neglecting their duties or receiving bribes. By submitting the issue to the police, it would predictably be sent to a dead end. The thing that surprised us was that the new Bangkok governor's issue management system just sent the known issue to the same dead end. We expected something more effective to solve issues.

Chadchart Sittipunt was elected as the new Governor of Bangkok in 2022. He has initiated many new policies that previous Bangkok governors did not, which makes us believe that he will make a difference. We still believe in his potential and true motivation to make Bangkok a better place to live. We will reach out to him through various channels to make him aware of the issue and the flaw in his system.