Project Report on “Improving Gender-Friendly Justice Administration in Thailand”

 

Project Report on “Improving Gender-Friendly Justice Administration in Thailand”

Gender and Development Research Institute (GDRI) under Association for the Promotion of the Status of Women (APSW)

Submitted to FES on September 17, 2022

     This FES-supported project on “Improving Gender-Friendly Justice Administration in Thailand” was implemented during June 1 – September 30, 2022, in a joint effort of FES, GDRI/APSW and Social Equality Promotion Foundation (SEPF) and has completed all planned activities which mainly conducting three public dialogue forum; one in Bangkok, and two in the region- Suratthani and Chiangmai Provinces and the budget for implementation of three one-day workshops was about 350,000 Baht.   These public forums had the following objectives:

1. To build knowledge and understanding of the gender-friendly justice services for multi-stakeholder personnel in the justice systems including police, prosecutors, social and psychology workers, shelter service workers, and CSOs who work to protect the rights of girls, women, and other vulnerable groups;

2. To create space, opportunities, and mechanisms for successful working collaboration and communication among multi-stakeholder professions to ensure the fundamental rights and security of victims of violence is protected;

3. To advocate for gender mainstreaming in the police and relevant agencies.

    Additionally, these forums were to enhance the knowledge and perception of the public and key stakeholders to accept the essential role of female police, especially in investigative function which was affirmed by the previous FES-hosted workshop on the topic “The Ideal Police in Perspectives of Women and Marginalized Groups,” that every police station must provide gender-friendly services to women and marginalized people who suffered gender-based violence, in order to fulfill this goal, each police station should deploy female investigator, arranging private and gender-friendly interrogation rooms for sexual and domestic violence cases.  

    In consultation with FES and SEPF, GDRI will volunteer to serve as the lead organization providing logistical arrangements, narrative, and financial reporting to FES.   

Beneficial target participants, resource persons, topics for discussions, and format of the forums:

    In each one-day workshop adopted a hybrid format of in-person and online participants (through the zoom application) and was broadcast live via the Facebook Page Gender Talk and Gender Equality by GDRI.  The three forums were conducted in Bangkok on July 3, in Surat Thani province on July 18, and in Chiang Mai on August 17, 2022.  Each forum was attended by approximately 30-50 participants consisting of representatives from civil society organizations, women, LGBTQ people, children, laborers, youth, academics, and those who have overcome violence and the other half will be representatives of government agencies such as police, prosecutors, multi-disciplinary professional teams, officials from Ministry of Social Development and Social Security, Ministry of Justice, politicians, and human rights organizations, etc.    

The total number of participants who attended the three dialogue forums (Bangkok, Surat Thani, and Chiang Mai), were 186 participants, 146 women, 36 men, and 4 LGBT people.

Participant’s profiles are shown as follows:

	Participant’s	Number
1	Government officials from relevant agencies, police, social workers, prosecutors, and local government authorities	39
2	NGOs and CSOs	74
3	Educational institution	9
4	National and local politicians and their assistants	25
5	Female community leaders	15
6	Migrant workers, tribal women with various ethnicties	19
7	Mainstream, online and local media	5
	Total participants	186

    The Format of the three forums were similar, started with understanding the meaning of gender-friendly in the justice system, the situation and analysis of violence against women in each region shared by resource persons, and their recommendation for gender-friendly improvement in the justice system, then there was a screen playing of the 15-minuted VDO clip on promoting female police, and the final sessions were devoted for all participants to provide more information, feedbacks to the resource persons and recommendations.  (The detailed report in the Thai language is attached)

Recommendations made by the participants from the three forums are summarized as follows in six themes.  It is noted that these recommendations are to supplement the normal laws, policies, and justice administration that are in place.

Theme 1: Related criminal laws that cover substantive and legislative procedures.

•       In terms of enforcement, the justice officer should focus on the behavior of the defendant, not the victim's behavior, and must avoid expressions showing that would discourage the victim’s intention such as accusing the victim of inviting the crime, victim blaming, or having the idea that victim/survivors want to blackmail;

•    Mediation or conciliation methods should not be used in sexual abuse cases, whether within or outside a personal relationship;

•      Adopting Plea Bargaining measure to negotiate the accused’s testimony (not mediation) in sexual abuse cases and this procedure must be performed only between the prosecutor and the accused during the pre-prosecution stage.

•   “Section 276: says “...whoever rapes another person by threatening in any way by means of violence… “ must be translated that this law covers rape between one's spouse and including any gender of two people, and rape should include sexual abuse committed in violation of trans-woman with a reconstructed or modified genitalia

•      Sexual harassment laws should be created because of sexual harassment behaviors frequency and severely take place online, at work, and in school, especially, commonly known as Bullying

•      The wife's violent actions against her husband for self-defense, but viewed as an intent to kill or injure beyond the cause, in this case, the justice process must take the concept of Battered Wife Syndrome into consideration. (There is an example in Thailand)

•       Military offenses against civilians, (Especially in sex crime cases) must go to the Court of Justice instead of the military court

Theme 2: Receiving complaints, reporting, and investigating procedures

•      Provide more hotline channels (presently there are Hotline 1300 for children and women, 1669 for emergency physicians, the Department of Rights and Liberties Protection has a hotline press 1111, press 77 and continue, an application named Justice Care which serve about rights, law, and judicial process 24 hours) In addition to hotline calls, there should be a mobile phone number of the forensic agency or OSCC published for emergency case.

•   The local operation center of the Department of Women and Family Affairs and district-level hospitals or sub-district health promotion hospitals should be provided authoritative power and skills so that they can assist and advise the victim on time, and they can do basic work such as collecting preliminary forensic evidence and immediately refer the victim to the forensic doctor and the police

•        Recommending that prosecutor should collaborate with the police in crime scene investigation at the first incident so the prosecutor can make discretion to protect the victim by issuing a security method that can also help prevent the influential offender to tamper with the witnesses or the victims

•       Use the method of taking pre-testimonies/examinations as witnesses of the victims in advance of the investigative stage when there is reasonable ground to believe that witnesses will be diminished and the victims may leave the Kingdom. 

•     In a strong power relation gap, the recording of victims' testimonies through CCTV should be adopted the same manner as interrogation in a sex offense case involving a child or a juvenile.

•       Respect the privacy, and dignity of victims by concealing personal information

•   If the victim is a small child, prior to interrogation, the child should be firstly supported by multi-disciplinary personnel such as a psychologist or social worker until the child can overcome his/her mental crisis stage.

•    In the event that the injured person is a disabled person, ethnic minority, foreigner, such as a migrant worker, or local people who normally speak the local dialect language, such as in the three southern provinces, the police station must provide an interpreter including sign language, places, and equipment to facilitate people with disabilities

•     The police should develop forms and evidence boxes (applied from the USA.) for the efficiency of referring and protecting the collected evidence at every step (Chain of Custody), such as DNA test results

Theme 3:  Empowerment and assistance to victims

•    The government should provide comprehensive legal and social assistance to victims of sexually abused from beginning to end of judicial proceedings. The government should support civil society organizations working on assistance, such as private emergency homes that provide comprehensive services so that each victim can have a case manager who will be responsible for the case whole through

•    In all shelters or care services, victims of gender diversity should be supported and put in a suitable place according to gender, safety, to reduce the discomfort of the affected.  Also, temporary housing should be provided for the victim who needs to work or visit their family in the daytime

•      Providing bail for sexually accused persons, especially involving influential persons, must be  carefully considered.  Government officials should not bail those accused of sexual abuse cases.

•      Every police station should have separate rooms for receiving and interrogating sexual crimes, and female investigators or assigned police officers must be trained in gender sensitivity therefore increasing the number of female police and investigators is a key contribution to gender-friendly justice services

•     The Royal Thai Police must set up a sex crime specialized unit.  This Special Headquarters on Sexual Crime will also have a duty to train all staff at all levels on human rights, gender dimensions, and the rights of women, children, and LGBT people.  The Unit must have the capacity to teach the use of advanced technology applications, new knowledge, and techniques in investigations including digital and online evidence

•   Royal Thai Police should set up a separate database for sexual offense category, domestic violence, and sexual violence caused by technology. (Technology-facilitated gender-based violence) in order to clearly see the severity and develop new skills, and create responsive laws and policies

Theme 4:  Forensic evidence and forensic science

•      Government hospitals usually have a service center to help children and women who have been subjected to violence known as One Stop Crisis Center (OSCC) to provide timely assistance and to prevent the deterioration of evidence, however, all physicians in every hospital must accept victims of violence, they should conduct a forensic examination of evidence without the need to wait for a police report first; and as well the police must receive the victim’s report immediately without having to wait for the medical examination report from the doctor.

•    Physicians of all disciplines must recognize that forensic evidence in cases of sexual abuse is important in court litigation therefore forensic evidence should be obtained prior to routine treatment

•       Lawfully implement the law, particularly in the case of verification of the identity of the accused and injured parties.... in case they denied the verification it shall be presumed that the facts are as claimed by the opposing parties.

Theme 5: Prosecution and taking witnesses in the court process

•      Insure the safety and confidence of victims of sex crimes and avoid confrontation or intimidation by the abused parties, such as having a partition screening between the parties or the use of CCTV, etc.

•   All personnel in the justice and social assistance must be trained on gender-sensitive and knowledgeable on relevant laws including Domestic Violence or Child Protection Act.  In those laws, local governments, police, prosecutors, shelters, and courts dealing with sex crime cases should have a good coordination system to help reduce the barriers caused by gender bias and the burden of proof or repeating interrogation put of the victims and witnesses because these barriers are the main factors that discourage many victims to pursue justice further leading to a large number of case dismissal or withdraw or compromise

Theme 6:  Compensation and victim’s remedy

•     According to the State Crime Compensation Act operated by the Rights and Liberties Protection Department, Ministry of Justice, there is a proposal of CSO demanding the government compensate the damage to victims of all nationalities or even non-citizens without discrimination and this includes also both illegal and legal migrants

Success Story: To be remarked that right after the representative from the Rights and Liberties Protection Department attended and received the proposed recommendation from the July 3 dialogue forum in Bangkok hosted by this project, the department issued a new regulation to compensate a few sexual crime migrant victims.  There has been some success in remedial work for migrant workers.)

•      In the Compensation Act, there should be further discussion to cover cases of sexual violation and harassment even though the case is dismissed because there is a high number of sexual crime cases that have been dismissed due to burden of proof bearing by the victims.

 

Please find additional reports and pictures in the Thai language attached herewith.

Reported by Ruengrawee Pichaikul
Director, GDRI

Dated: 17 September 2022