New report exposes inadequacies of the Thai justice system to protect domestic violence survivors
(BANGKOK, March 20, 2025)—The Government of Thailand should develop and implement rights-based and survivor-centered domestic violence legislation to ensure survivors have access to justice and effective remedies, Fortify Rights and the Social Equality Promotion Foundation said today. According to a new report released by Fortify Rights today, Thailand’s domestic violence legal framework and law enforcement mechanisms fail to provide adequate protections for survivors of domestic violence.
“Domestic violence survivors in Thailand have suffered for too long without proper protections,” said Mookdapa Yangyuenpradorn, Human Rights Specialist at Fortify Rights. “Until Thailand’s laws and law enforcement authorities recognize and prioritize the rights of survivors, physical and psychological abuses within intimate relationships will continue with impunity, leaving women and children in particular battered, scarred, and traumatized.”
Fortify Rights’s 48-page report, “Just Stay Silent”: Lack of Access to Effective Remedies for Women Survivors of Domestic Violence in Thailand, is the result of a two-year investigation into Thailand’s justice system’s response to domestic violence. It is based on more than 50 interviews with survivors of domestic violence, officials, and professionals working with domestic violence survivors, such as police officers, lawyers, doctors, and service-providing staff.
“He slapped me with his bare hands until I was bleeding,” “Wan,” 39, told Fortify Rights, describing the abuse committed by a man she dated for six months and eventually moved in with after meeting him online. “He held my hands behind my back, holding a knife at my neck to threaten me. He knocked me over and over on the head. … I tolerated it because I had nowhere to go.”
According to official statistics, approximately one in six Thai women in heterosexual cohabiting relationships have experienced domestic violence in their lifetimes. Domestic violence cases comprise almost 65 percent of all cases of violence reported to the Ministry of Social Development and Human Security, which likely underrepresents the actual number of cases due to under-reporting by survivors. Almost 90 percent of the reported cases are women, and more than 35 percent are between ten and 20 years old, indicating a high rate of child abuse among domestic violence cases.
These statistics point to a national domestic violence epidemic. Thailand’s justice system is failing survivors who are unable to access adequate protections or obtain effective remedies, said Fortify Rights.
“While Thailand has a law on domestic violence, many lawyers, attorneys, or judges may not be familiar with it,” said Supensri Puengkhoksung, the director of the Social Equality Promotion Foundation—an organization that provides social services and legal assistance to domestic violence survivors. “Domestic violence is a solvable problem, and justice is a fundamental right, but the law must ensure that survivors have access to it.”
The enactment and later suspension of the Promoting Development and Protecting the Family Institution (PDPF) Act, which aimed to replace the relatively strong Victims of Domestic Violence Protection Act, created confusion and legal uncertainty that continue to impact domestic violence survivors today. Introduced by a military-aligned Thai Cabinet, the 2019 PDPF Act sought to “abolish the criminal offense of domestic violence” and “improve more appropriate measures to protect the well-being of family members.”
The government suspended the PDPF Act less than four months after its enactment after recognizing significant gaps in its implementation framework.
Although the current law of the land is the reinstated 2007 Victims of Domestic Violence Protection Act, which includes relatively strong protections for survivors and prescribes criminal penalties for perpetrators, access to such protections and accountability is complicated by a lack of enforcement by officials in the Thai justice system. For example, “Wow,” a domestic violence survivor who suffered years of abuse by her parents, described the response she received from the police when she reported the abuse. She said: “I was at fault every time. … [The police] listened to my mother and told me that I was their child and that I shouldn’t fight her. I should listen to them. ‘Be a good kid, and don’t lose your temper. When they get angry, just stay silent.’”
Thailand’s failure to facilitate adequate protections and ensure access to effective legal remedies for survivors of domestic violence contravenes the country’s obligations under international human rights law. The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), to which Thailand is a state party, details the responsibilities of states to prevent and respond to domestic violence as a form of gender-based violence. Under CEDAW, states are required to “take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women,” including within private spheres. According to the CEDAW Committee—the U.N. expert body that monitors state compliance with the convention—this includes “measures to prevent, as well as investigate, prosecute, punish and provide reparations” for “acts or omissions by non-State actors that result in gender-based violence.” The Committee has further held that “[f]amily violence is one of the most insidious forms of violence against women.”
Domestic violence infringes not only on rights protected by CEDAW but also a range of rights protected by other treaties to which Thailand is a state party, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. For example, such violence poses threats to the rights to life, liberty, security, health, non-discrimination, an adequate standard of living, freedom from torture and ill-treatment, as well as freedom of expression, movement, assembly, and association, to name a few.
“Thailand should urgently prioritize the implementation of comprehensive, survivor-centered procedures for domestic violence cases and put in place a coherent legal framework to properly respond to domestic violence,” said Mookdapa Yangyuenpradorn, “Thailand has a responsibility to ensure that survivors receive the support and protection they deserve and that perpetrators are brought to justice.”