No. 65/2557

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Thailand invites the general public to join    a country-wide digital campaign to raise awareness on mine action, marking the annual International Day for Mine Awareness and Assistance Mine Action on 4 April. The general public is invited to share, on the social media, photos of themselves, families, and friends with one pant leg folded up in a symbolic gesture known as “Lend Your Leg” using the hash tag #LendYourLegTH.  The Photos will also be shared and published on Instagram @LendYourLegTH and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/LendYourLegThailand as well as on the Ministry’s partnered agencies’ websites during 1 – 30 April 2014. 

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs also published a notebook “Zero Victim, Mine-Free” featuring photographs of eight landmine survivors in Srakeaw Province through the lenses of two Thai photographers, Panithan Kitsakul and Supachail Ketkaroonkul, who visited the same group of survivors ten years apart in 2003 and 2013 respectively.  The photographs were exhibited at “The Landmine Survivors: A Photography Exhibition by Supachai Ketkaroonkul” at Siam Paragon on 4 – 14 April 2013 to mark the International Day for Mine Awareness and Assistance in Mine Action last year. 

Thailand signed the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-personnel Mines and on Their Destruction (Mine Ban Convention) on 3 December 1997 and subsequently ratified the Convention on 27 November 1998.  It was the first country in Southeast Asia to sign the Convention and has since played an active role as a state party to the Convention by hosting the Fifth Meeting of States Parties to the Mine Ban Convention (5MSP) in 2003 and organizing the Bangkok Symposium on Enhancing Cooperation and Assistance: Building Synergy towards Effective Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention Implementation on 23 – 25 June 2013.  Thailand also co-chaired several standing committees to the Mine Ban Convention, on Victim Assistance, on General Status and Operation and on Resources, Cooperation and Assistance.