OPINION

Women's rights depend on tackling social stigmas

News, Yoriko Yasukawa, Published on 11/07/2016

» Childhood was tough for Patty, a Thai teenage girl. After years of abuse at the hands of her father, desperation drove her into the arms of a much older man when she was just 13. A year later Patty, who is now 18, was pregnant, resulting in yet more violence against her, this time from her boyfriend. Patty fled again, and was forced to quit school. For the next two years, she moved between her abusive father, boyfriend and state-run shelters -- eventually settling at the Emergency Home for young mothers in Bangkok, run by Thailand's Association for the Promotion of the Status of Women.