The Buddhist-majority nation of 69 million citizens registered a record low birth rate of just below 545,000 newborns last year, lower than total 563,650 deaths, according to data from the National Statistical Office. Thailand recorded between 900,000 to 1 million births until the mid-1990s when the birth rate started to decline.
Newborn babies dressed as chicks to mark the Year of the Rooster sleep at Paolo Memorial Hospital in Bangkok on January 27, 2017. (Photo by LILLIAN SUWANRUMPHA / AFP)
The fertility rate has dropped to 1.2 children per woman, well below the replacement rate of 2.1, from a one-time high of 5.1. Analysts say falling birth rate is one of the reasons why Thailand is already facing a chronic labor shortage despite being one of Southeast Asia’s robust economies. It is poised to face social repercussions of an aging society.
With the declining birth rate Thailand will have 28 percent population aged 60 or over within a decade and become a super-aged society like developed nations such as Italy and Japan.
A young Dominican priest who was hacked to death while hearing confessions in a church in Vietnam forgave his murderer before his death. The information was revealed by Bishop Aloisius Nguyen Hung Vi of Kontum Diocese, where the 41-year-old priest was based.
Father Joseph Tran Ngoc Thanh was stabbed multiple times at Sa Loong sub-parish in Kontum Diocese on January 29. He died from severe head wounds in a hospital hours later. His alleged killer, Nguyen Van Kien, is a Catholic and a suspected drug abuser.
Vietnamese Dominican priest Father Joseph Tran Ngoc Thanh (1981-2022) was killed in a knife attack on Jan. 29. (Photo supplied)
Bishop Vi said the slain priest lived the Gospel values, which was demonstrated in his forgiveness to his killer before death.
Born in 1981, Joseph Thanh was ordained a priest in 2018 and dedicated himself in serving ethnic groups in Central Highlands of Vietnam. He was known as a kind and affable man dedicated to missionary ministry.
South Korea’s Seoul archdiocese continues its effort to sponsor and support single mothers who struggle to maintain their families. During a recent ceremony to deliver sponsorship certificates to 20 beneficiaries in capital Seoul, officials from Seoul Archdiocese said the church will stand with families in their difficult times.
Since 2018, the Committee for Life of Seoul Archdiocese has been running the sponsorship program for single mothers in collaboration with Church-run Catholic Newspaper and Catholic Peace Broadcasting Corporation.
A priest baptizes a child in a Catholic church in South Korea in 2020. Seoul Archdiocese has been supporting single mothers with a monthly subsidy since 2018. (Photo: Catholic Times of Korea)
Each sponsored family receives a subsidy of 500,000 won or 418 US dollars each month for one year, which can be extended if necessary. Such support programs are vital in a country where recent surveys showed six out of ten young South Koreans are negative marriage and about 25 percent South Koreans are positive about having children out-of-wedlock.
In 2019, South Korea had about 30.2 percent single-parent households.
As thousands of civilians in Myanmar grapple with ongoing conflict between the military and local ethnic armed groups, many of them continue to flee to neighboring India and Thailand.
This week, rights groups and media reports said more than 8,000 refugees including women and children have fled from Christian-majority Chin state to India’s Mizoram, a predominantly Christian province in Hindu dominated India.
This handout photo by Chin Twin Chit Thu taken on February 3, 2022 and released on February 5, 2022 shows an aerial view of burnt buildings in Mingin Township, in Sagaing Division, where more than 105 buildings were destroyed by junta military troops, according to local media. (Photo by Handout / Chin Twin Chit Thu / AFP)
The number now add up to more than 22,000 who fled since military coup in Myanmar in February last year. Above this, more than 40,000 have been internally displaced in the state itself.
An estimated 30,000 people have crossed into four bordering Indian states — Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh from Christian-majority areas in Kayah, Chin and Karen states in Myanmar. Since the coup, the military junta has killed about 1,500 civilians and arrested about 12,000 people.
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