14-year-old’s audio clip shines light on epidemic of teachers’ sexual abuse
A Buri Ram-based teacher allegedly sexually assaulted his student and blackmailed her for sex for nearly two years, an audio clip has indicated.
The clip, which was released by the 14-year-old alleged victim’s family on Wednesday, apparently recorded her telephone conversation with the 57-year-old teacher, who remained unidentified on Wednesday.
The conversation indicated that the teacher had tried to arrange a rendezvous with her and finally threatened to release a clip on social media of her being sexually abused if she did not respond to his demands.
The girl was allegedly first sexually abused at her school in Buri Ram’s Nang Rong district in 2016, when she was just 12.
The teacher then allegedly forced her to have sex with him using blackmail.
The girl reportedly had been too afraid to report the teacher to authorities, but her mother noticed that something was bothering her and found out about the attacks in the subsequent conversation.
On February 12, the mother lodged a complaint against the teacher with Nang Rong Police Station.
Police responded by following the girl to a resort where the teacher had prepared a rendezvous and arrested him. He was wearing nothing but towel at the time of the arrest.
This week, the teacher was transferred out of his school pending an investigation by the Education Ministry.
“I will fight to the end to bring him to justice,” the mother of the alleged victim said.
According to a report by the Office of Teacher Civil Service and Educational Personnel Commission, 190 teachers faced disciplinary penalties between 2011 and 2016 after being found guilty of sexual misbehaviour.
The government’s One Stop Crisis Centre, meanwhile, provided help to underage sexual-abuse victims at 879 schools between 2013 and 2017. In those cases, 168 teachers were identified as attackers.
The Centre for the Protection of Children’s Rights has recently disclosed that most student victims faced threats from their teachers.
There also have been cases in which teachers offered compensation to the young victims’ parents, and in which teachers threatened to file counter complaints.