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Today’s youth in East and South-East Asia are increasingly playing a critically important role in democratic engagement, from the founding of the ‘Milk Tea Alliance’ a transborder democracy and human rights movement—to the empowering of young politicians pursuing progressive causes.

In Thailand from 2020 into 2021, demands for structural societal reforms arose in unprecedented waves of youth-led demonstrations that shook the country. At their peak, student rallies during that time were an almost daily occurrence, some attended by more than 10,000 demonstrators.¹ University and secondary school students—some as young as 13 years of age—developed creative and colorful methods to organize public demonstrations and to have their voices heard.

Despite their peaceful nature, pro-democracy street demonstrations were periodically dispersed by the security authorities. In response to such action, UNICEF released a statement calling for the upholding of ‘children and young people’s right to freedom of expression’, reminding the public that the right to participation, peaceful assembly, and freedom of expression is enshrined in the UN’s Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), notably ratified by Thailand over thirty years ago (1992).

Despite calls from UN human rights experts in support of Freedom of Expression in Thailand, more than 280 children and youth under 18 years old have been prosecuted for their participation in political assemblies and other expressions of political protest since the beginning of the ‘Free Youth’ protest of July 2020.²

Despite the gradual abatement of youth-led protests since 2022, student demands for national reform helped to pave the way for democratic debate before Thailand’s general election of May 2023.

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