Sexual violence or harassment in activist circles and social movements has always created controversy in society, but it has become extremely intense in the age of social media. On the one hand, the Women and Men Progressive Movement Foundation suggests that creating an understanding on gender and gender equality should be prioritized. At the same time, activist networks must join together to investigate activists’ behaviour. If a case of abuse arises, the victim must be encouraged to stand up and supported in fighting the case .

Campaign to stop sexual harassment among activists in 2019. The message on the paper reads: "What would social change means if there is still sexual harassment." (source: photo archive/Prachatai)

Does sexual violence or abuse among activists and within social movements really exist? Is there such a thing among people believed to be progressives who want to do good for society? These questions have always created controversy, but have become extremely intense in the age of social media, where people are more able to “kiss and tell” and relatively free to interact with each other.

“It was the woman who went along with the man,” “She just had it in for the man after they broke up,” “In fact the man fell victim to woman’s trickery,” and many other reasons for supporting the man are often the standard explanations for this situation.

When we seriously try to bring up this issue, widespread “hearsay” or “gossip” cannot be denied. In most cases there is no court case or public campaign as you might see in other social issues. For example, a woman related that she had suffered continued sexual abuse by an artist, who later went on to become a National Artist, while she was active in the Student Federation of Thailand (SFT) in 2000. A former staff member of the Campaign for Popular Democracy admitted that he had sexually harassed a female subordinate while at work in the office and on field trips and was suspended from work for one year as a result. Later, he resigned from his position of secretary-general to show responsibility. A member of the Bangkok Metropolitan Council invited four young female members of the New Generation Group to have a meal together at his apartment in 2022 after an activity. Alcoholic drinks were offered. While some of the victims were using the restroom, the Councillor took of the chance when the victims were unaware to hug them, kiss them on the neck, and touch their breasts. The four girls decided to file a legal complaint against him. The Move Forward Party punished him by expelling him from the Party.

Often these stories become nothing more than entertaining gossip, with no proper reports or questions whether really there were no incidents like this because how could activists do such evil things?.

Back in 2019, a social activist network jointly submitted an open letter to fellow activists calling for them to stop sexual harassment within activist groups. They said that sexual harassment and prejudices created an unsafe space for collaboration and were an obstacle to the movement achieving its full potential. The letter defined sexual harassment as “an act that makes another person uncomfortable in a sexual way or in a way relating to their gender. Such an act can affect any gender.” The letter also gave examples of patterns of sexual harassment found among social activist groups, including teasing or criticizing appearance and clothes, repeatedly questioning the marital status of women, continuing to flirt despite objections, touching the body, head, back, or shoulders too much, reserving connecting hotel rooms when there is no need or asking to enter a room, mocking a certain sex as worthless or as a sexual plaything so that people of that sex can hear whether intentionally or not, joking about a relationship or sexual intercourse, talking flippantly, aggressively asking for sex, etc.

Jomtian Jansomrag, a human rights organization staff member and activist on gender-based violence, argued in the webinar “Role and Challenges for Thai Political Activists in LGBTIQ+ and Women’s Groups in the Pro-Democracy Movement” on 30 September 2022 that sexual violence occurs all the time and has existed in social movements for a long time. This shows that principles have been very fragile and to be honest, those fighting for social justice are no different than the authoritarians that they hate so much. They tend to protect their own kind rather than their principles, while if it is the case that the perpetrator is from the state or an outsider, they will join in the attack because they see them as their opponent.

“When it comes to sexual violence that happens in the movement and the perpetrator is in their own movement, the victim faces a significant number of challenges. For instance, they are told things like, “don’t talk about that issue,” “it will harm the movement,” or “don’t take any action because we will lose people from the movement and there are already few people as it is,” said Jomtian.

In many cases, these stories about what male activists do to women often go quiet. In the end, women are forced to accept what happened, while men are to enjoy their positions in activist circles at large. This may be because of the narrative of “what these male activists have done for us (the movement) makes us not want to lose them.”

One of the young political activists who joined the movement in 2020 to fight for democracy and advocate for gender rights and equality and who wants to remain anonymous, spoke at the same webinar that if sexual harassment or abuse is happening among activists now, appeals can be made on social media to make society interested. However, there is a price to pay, because the person who exposes it must also bear considerable pressure, rubbing salt into the wound in the process, while there is no remedy. The movement was not founded upon feminist values from the start, and toxic masculinity is high.

How did it happen?

Pitchsinee Chaitaweetham, an independent journalist and author, pointed out that the causes of sexual abuse among activists arise from the fact that many activists do not recognize equality of individual rights regardless of gender and age. She explains that despite the normal basic understanding that everyone is equal, the level of understanding varies from person to person. As a result, the issue of asking for consent or emotional empathy is sometimes missing.

Pitchsinee added that the patriarchal culture in activist society also prevented activists from speaking out how they themselves have been affected from work or sexual abuse at work. Particularly in the world today, relationships can take a greater variety of forms and names, leading to these definitions being used as an excuse for sexual abuse.

“There are sayings like, ‘if you want to have any kind of relationship, be careful not to let it affect work”. Besides patriarchy in society, there is this kind of thinking which further keeps us from speaking out about our inner pain. It is painful to be abused by someone who is fighting for human rights.  That hurts,” said Pitchsinee.

Vorapat Veerapattanakup, board member of the Union for Civil Liberty (UCL) and democracy coordinator of Non-Binary Thailand, said that, individually, not all human beings are able to control their own urges to the same extent. Socially, however, for one person to be able to abuse another, social power relations are often involved. Thus, in case of sexual abuse, we often find that the perpetrators have power over the victims, be it physically or in terms of social status. For incidents that take place in activist circles or a political party, it is possible that they exploit their acknowledged social status in their field. In fact, in many cases, the perpetrators choose as victim someone they are confident they have power over and are able to control and silence. In an employer-employee context, the employers generally have enough power that after they have been exposed, there are people are ready to believe they did not do it and some are ready to defend them and answer for them. This enables claims that it was the victim’s attempt to discredit them. This is especially difficult when the incident did not take place in the open, and where evidence is difficult to find.

“This phenomenon has not just appeared in these times. A similar case took place around 30-40 years ago in the development movement, where a senior intellectual behaved inappropriately towards a young female. The issue was brought to be discussed at a general assembly, which resulted in mediation letting both sides free. Seeing that the matter did not even reach the level of a threat, abuse of power, or coercion to get what you want, a number of female NGO workers were dissatisfied, leading to years of bad feeling for many years afterwards”, said Vorapat.

For Jadet Chaowilai, Director of the Women and Men Progressive Movement Foundation, sexual abuse among activists is a result of patriarchy in Thai society which gives importance to masculinity. The result is that men in that society have power over women in many issues. Male activists have ideas that are no different from men in other professions in general. They have progressive ideas in some areas, but when it comes to sex, they do not look at it as a human rights issue. Instead, they use masculine power to suppress through sexual harassment, such as threats, rape, etc. In addition, there is still the patronage system which encourages favouritism among their own group which sees sexual abuse as trivial.

“As the patriarchal system does not give importance to sexual abuse, and instead sees it as an issue of love, or a common and trivial issue, the problem of sexual abuse should not be talked about because it would cause the movement to collapse. Some of the victims will have the idea that they are at fault and they are the problem, or some speak up and complain and are said by the movement to damage the movement. And activists help and defend each other”, said Jadet.

We don’t want things like this to happen (what do we have to do?)

For ways to prevent this problem, Vorapat believes that people in the activist movement must create a genuine admission of mistakes, sincerely apologize and show responsibility. He raised an example of a senior activist who committed a mistake in a case like this and showed spirit by resigning from his positions in various organizations and took time prove his repentance. Despite his promising career at that time, when he made a mistake, he assumed responsibility for what he had done. It did not mean that he would never be able to return to activism. In fact, he did return eventually.

Vorapat said that some NGOs nowadays require employees to sign agreements to comply with policies on sexual harassment in the workplace and child pornography, and sign acknowledgement of policies against sexual exploitation and abuse before they are employed to prevent employees from sexual exploitation of target groups they work with, as their status as the provider of help may lead to a form of power relation that facilitates abuse.

“We have to completely eliminate the culture of impunity and victim-blaming. We can give offenders a chance to restart, but we must not conceal what they have done wrong. We must seriously hold them accountable and make them sincerely apologize first, otherwise our movement will look even worse lose credibility in the eyes of outsiders”, said Vorapat.

Jadet sees that groups must check what perspective people joining the movement have on gender equality. Without this concept, problems will result later in the movement and networks. There must also be training on gender issues to constantly develop concepts of equality in a dynamic society, update newly emerging ideas and create an understanding on essential ideas such as consent.

At the same time, activist networks themselves must join in examining the behaviour of fellow activists, criticizing, and warning each other. If a case of abuse arises, members must stand by and support the victim to stand up and fight. According to Jadet, it is important that activists must not commit sexual harassment and abuse, because this concept is basic for all activists. If an incident takes place, everyone must help denounce and reject this behaviour. There should be no activists who fight on social issues and exhibit behaviour of philandering and sexual abuse and harassment.