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Published on February 13, 2008

Entertainment venues will be urged to close on time and checks will be conducted to prevent youngsters from entering motels or dormitories to engage in underage sex.

Metropolitan Police spokesman Maj-General Suporn Phanseu said city police chief Assawin Kwanmuang was concerned about girls being seduced by boyfriends on the "Day of Love". While police would help by trying to prevent youths gathering in isolated places, he urged parents to warn them about the danger of premature sex, Suporn said.

Assawin also ordered 88 police stations in Bangkok to be vigilant against ill-intentioned persons attempting to lure youths under 18 into lewd acts and to ask night entertainment venues to close on time, he said.

Checkpoints would be set up to check on young girls riding on the back of motorcycles at night and police have asked for cooperation from district authorities to keep a watchful eye on youths gathering in parks and shopping malls.

Police Colonel Theerasak Suriwong, head of the women, children and youth welfare centre, said his office would dispatch three undercover police teams to prevent motels from allowing underage people to have rooms. The undercover teams would also patrol public parks to warn youths against inappropriate behaviour and sex crimes.

Director of the Culture Ministry's Culture Monitoring Centre, Ladda Tangsuphachai, said that a poll conducted ahead of Valentine's Day found 21 per cent of youths admitted to having sex on the night of February 14 while many young couples chose the occasion to get married.

Ladda expressed concern about young couples marrying too early and warned that their lack of preparation and life experience could lead to divorce later on. She said she disagreed with campaigns by some district offices, which encouraged as many couples as possible to register marriages on the day, because she believed it was a commercialisation of Valentine's Day, with a focus on quantity rather than quality.

Sukhum Chaleysub, deputy rector of Rajabhat Suan Dusit University, urged schools to educate students about the real meaning of Valentine's Day, which was a day in which to celebrate not just sexual love but the many aspects of love and all its splendour.

Given the many conflicts in the country now, the day could be celebrated by expressing love and forgiveness to one another, he said.

The Nation