The reference on Wikipedia is from a report[1] by the "UNITED NATIONS INTERREGIONAL CRIME AND JUSTICE RESEARCH INSTITUTE", which is a "desk review" that cites and reviews other research. The quote Wikipedia uses is from a paragraph on page 18:
> Thailand’s Health System Research Institute reports that children in prostitution make up 40 percent of sex workers in Thailand.
I can't find this report even though I've been using the HSRI's own searchable database[2] and search engines (you'll need Google Translate unless you can read Thai). I did, however, see see numerous other reports reusing the same quote in the searches returned by an engine, so it's well used.
If we continue the same paragraph:
> At the other end of this debate many NGOs estimate the number of CSEC victims to be in the hundreds of thousands. Other reports estimate the number of child victims of prostitution to be at least 80,000 but likely to be in the hundreds of thousands (ECPAT International; The Protection Project, 2002: 539).
I can't find any Protection Project report about Thailand in their publications[3], nor do they include Thailand in their list of country reports[4]. I also cannot be sure that either of the reports[5][6] I found on ECPAT's site are the one cited. The larger one, which was published in 2011 (but is the 2nd edition so perhaps it is from 2002) does not include the figure. It does however have this:
> Prostitution is technically illegal in Thailand, but sexual services are sold openly with an estimated 60,000 children under age 18 involved in prostitution.15
This is note 15:
> U.S. Department of State, 2009 Country Report on Human Rights Practice, Thailand. Accessed on 13 July 2010 from: http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/ hrrpt/2009/index.htm
This is the statement in the report[7]:
> In 2007 the government, university researchers, and NGOs estimated that there were as many as 60,000 prostitutes under age 18.
No note for that one, it's a dead end.
This doesn't mean the figure is wrong, of course, but it does support the idea that people should be able to question figures, and when challenged, claims should be backed up by something better that circular references, missing reports, and dead ends.
> Thailand’s Health System Research Institute reports that children in prostitution make up 40 percent of sex workers in Thailand.
I can't find this report even though I've been using the HSRI's own searchable database[2] and search engines (you'll need Google Translate unless you can read Thai). I did, however, see see numerous other reports reusing the same quote in the searches returned by an engine, so it's well used.
If we continue the same paragraph:
> At the other end of this debate many NGOs estimate the number of CSEC victims to be in the hundreds of thousands. Other reports estimate the number of child victims of prostitution to be at least 80,000 but likely to be in the hundreds of thousands (ECPAT International; The Protection Project, 2002: 539).
I can't find any Protection Project report about Thailand in their publications[3], nor do they include Thailand in their list of country reports[4]. I also cannot be sure that either of the reports[5][6] I found on ECPAT's site are the one cited. The larger one, which was published in 2011 (but is the 2nd edition so perhaps it is from 2002) does not include the figure. It does however have this:
> Prostitution is technically illegal in Thailand, but sexual services are sold openly with an estimated 60,000 children under age 18 involved in prostitution.15
This is note 15: > U.S. Department of State, 2009 Country Report on Human Rights Practice, Thailand. Accessed on 13 July 2010 from: http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/ hrrpt/2009/index.htm
This is the statement in the report[7]:
> In 2007 the government, university researchers, and NGOs estimated that there were as many as 60,000 prostitutes under age 18.
No note for that one, it's a dead end.
This doesn't mean the figure is wrong, of course, but it does support the idea that people should be able to question figures, and when challenged, claims should be backed up by something better that circular references, missing reports, and dead ends.
[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20070712223227if_/http://www.uni...
[2] http://kb.hsri.or.th/dspace/
[3] http://www.protectionproject.org/publications/
[4] http://www.protectionproject.org/country-reports/
[5] https://www.ecpat.org/wp-content/uploads/legacy/Factsheet_Th...
[6] https://www.ecpat.org/wp-content/uploads/legacy/a4a_v2_eap_t...
[7] http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2009/index.htm
Edit: formatting, a little bit of javascript wouldn't go amiss for the comment boxes!