Abstract:
This research aims to study child abuse prevention and propose appropriate development approaches to child abuse prevention for Thailand. Qualitative study was conducted through reviewing academic papers and in-depth interviews with policy makers, public and private sector workers, and community representatives who had experience in working with children, and had expertise and played an important role in the protection of child abuse under the Child Protection Act BE 2546. The results of this research find that child abuse is a major national problem, and it is growing with violent and complex acts along with the change of social condition while many public and private parties have been made efforts to eliminate the problem and improve child protection. Furthermore, there are limitations to prevent child abuse effectively due to the lack of integrated management at policy levels, operational level and local level which impacts Thailand not to be able to raise children's protection to international standards under the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Suggestions from this research are that for the development of appropriate child protection systems in Thailand, the following four factors should be taken into account in all dimensions to create a child protection mechanism. (1) Policy level should raise the level of planning. (2) The level of operation should develop professionalism. (3) Local level should access the environment around children, including families, institutions and communities. (4) Child Development, Rehabilitation and internal strengthening program should be implemented for children to live happily.